  Inspired by the pioneering 1968 work of L Parker, demonstrating matter quanta
production in a dynamical spacetime background, we consider production of
scalar quanta in a gravitational wave background. Choosing the spacetime to be
a flat spacetime perturbed linearly by a linear gravitational wave, we show
that scalar particles may indeed be produced in a perturbative manner. Our
formulation is valid for any linear gravitational wave background profile, and
is by no means restricted to monochromatic plane waves, in contrast to much of
the earlier work on this topic. Thus, our work is directly applicable to
gravitational wave signals from compact binary coalescence detected at LIGO,
where they are of a pulsed character rather than monochromatic plane waves. We
also briefly outline generalizing our approach for photon creation in a
gravitational wave background. In this aspect, irrespective of the
astrophysical nature of the binary merger sourcing the gravitational wave
signal, one expects the dynamical nature of the spacetime to produce all
species of light particles. Thus, any binary coalescence is in effect a source
of multimessenger astrophysics.
