2001A&A...366.1065D

Astrophysical implications of gravitational microlensing of gravitational waves emitted by rotating neutron stars (NSs) are investigated. In particular, attention is focused on the following situations: i) NSs in the galactic bulge lensed by a central black hole of 2.6 10⁶M_☉ or by stars and MACHOs distributed in the galactic bulge, disk and halo between Earth and the sources; ii) NSs in globular clusters lensed by a central black hole of ∼10³M_☉ or by stars and MACHOs distributed throughout the Galaxy. The detection of such kind of microlensing events will give a unique opportunity for the unambiguous mapping of the central region of the Galaxy and of globular clusters. In addition, the detection of such events will provide a new test of the General Theory of Relativity. Gravitational microlensing will, moreover, increase the challenge of detecting gravitational waves from NSs.