Graviton Mass and Memory

Understand

Gravitational memory, a residual change, arises after a finite gravitational wave pulse interacts with free masses.

• We calculate the memory effect in massive gravity as a function of the graviton mass $(m_g)$ and show that it is discretely different from the result of general relativity: the memory is reduced not just via the usual expected Yukawa decay but by a numerical factor which survives even in the massless limit.
• For the strongest existing bounds on the graviton mass, the memory is essentially wiped out for the sources located at distances above 10 Mpc.
• On the other hand, for the weaker bounds found in the LIGO observations, the memory is reduced to zero for distances above 0.1 Pc.