This is pulled out of a post in the entanglement=attraction thread. The questions are pretty tangential to that discussion, and since they didn't seem to catch any attention there I figured I'd give 'em their own thread and add some flesh to 'em...
If gravitons travel and propagate as waves, that implies that gravity has a wavelength and amplitude.
Presumably, it is the wave's amplitude that decreases over distance by varying inversely with the square of distance between two particles.
So what is the effect of altering the wavelength? If two bodies are moving away from one another then redshift is going to lengthen the wavelength and if they are approaching one another then there will be blue shift shortening the wavelength. But what does that mean in terms of gravity?
Thought experiment: Let's say two extremely massive objects (let's go with neutron stars) get slingshot gravity boosts around two massive black holes and are accelerated directly toward one other, each traveling at relativistic speeds. This gives their gravity waves a massive blue shift.
Shortly before the collision, they will bath each other in extremely shortwave, high amplitude gravity waves. So how will that effect the collision? Will they feel a sudden pull towards each other stronger than it would if the objects where in the same relative places but not approaching so fast? Sounds logical to me. It means that the actual collision should produce more energy than would be expected if gravity was simply the warping of space and didn't involve waves.
And if that is so, then do objects moving towards us exert a slightly stronger gravitational pull at each measured position than they would if measured at the same positions without the relative motion towards us? That sounds logical too, and leads to objects moving away from us exerting less gravitational pull than expected. That might be an alternative to dark matter right there.
Have any tests ever been done on a concept like this? If so, is that already taken into account in current models of the cosmos?
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