Gravitational Lensing of Gravitational Waves from Merging Neutron Star Binaries.

We discuss the gravitational lensing of gravitational waves from merging neutron star binaries, in the context of advanced LIGO type gravitational wave detectors. We consider properties of the expected observational data with cut on the signal-to-noise ratio ρ, i.e., ρ > ρ0. An advanced LIGO should see unlensed inspiral events with a redshift distribution with cut-off at a redshift zmax < 1 for h ≤ 0.8. Any inspiral events detected at z > zmax should be lensed. We compute the expected total number of events which are present due to gravitational lensing and their redshift distribution for an advanced LIGO in a flat Universe. If the matter fraction in compact lenses is close to 10%, an advanced LIGO should see a few strongly lensed events per year with ρ > 5. PACS numbers: 98.62.Sb, 98.80.Es, 04.80.Nn Typeset using REVTEX 1