COSMOLOGICAL WAVE-GUIDES FOR GRAVITATIONAL-WAVES - ART. NO. 104009

We study the linearized equations describing the propagation of gravit ational waves through dust. In the leading order of the WKB approximat ion, dust behaves as a nondispersive, nondissipative medium. Taking ad vantage of these features, we explore the possibility that a gravitati onal wave from a distant source gets trapped by the gravitational fiel d of a long filament of galaxies of the kind seen in the large scale s tructure of the Universe. Such a waveguiding effect may lead to a huge magnification of the radiation Bur from distant sources, thus lowerin g the sensitivity threshold required for a successful detection of gra vitational waves by detectors such as VIRGO, LIGO, and LISA. [S0556-28 21(98)01220-X].