INTERFEROMETRIC DETECTION OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVES: THE DEFINITIVE TEST FOR GENERAL RELATIVITY

Even though Einstein's general relativity has achieved great success and passed a lot of experimental tests, it has also shown some shortcomings and flaws which today prompt theorists to ask if it is the definitive theory of gravity. In this essay we show that if advanced projects on the detection of gravitational waves (GWs) improve their sensitivity, allowing us to perform a GW astronomy then accurate angle- and frequency-dependent response functions of interferometers for GWs arising from various theories of gravity, i.e. general relativity and extended theories of gravity, will be the definitive test for general relativity. The papers mentioned in this essay were the world's most-cited in 2007 of the Astroparticle Publication Review of ASPERA with 13 citations.