Graviton-photon conversion in blazar jets as a probe of high-frequency gravitational waves

Abstract: We study graviton-photon conversion in the magnetic fields of a blazar jet and explore the possibility of detecting high-frequency gravitational waves through blazar observations. We calculate the conversion rate using the magnetic field configurations of leptonic, lepto-hadronic, and hadronic one-zone synchrotron self-Compton models for the blazar jet of Mrk 501. By requiring that the photon flux produced within the blazar jet does not exceed the observed flux of Mrk 501, we derive conservative constraints on the abundance of stochastic gravitational waves. We find that, for all three models considered, the resulting limits can be more stringent than previous constraints in the frequency range from $10^8$ Hz to $10^{15}$ Hz.