Response functions of free mass gravitational wave antennas

Rainer Weiss and collaborators have from first principles derived the response of a free mass interferometer (or 2-arm gravitational wave antenna) to plane polarized gravitational waves 1]. We here obtain equivalent formulas (generalized slightly to allow for arbitrary elliptical polarization) by a simple differencing of the 3-pulse Doppler response functions of two 1-arm antennas 2]. A 4-pulse response function is found, with quite complicated angular dependences for arbitrary incident polarization. The differencing method can as readily be used to write exact response functions (3n+1 pulse!) for antennas having multiple passes, or having more arms.The research described in this paper was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.