Sources of gravity waves

JAN 01, 1974

Although gravitational signals from supernovae and black holes are estimated to be below the noise level of present detectors, they may soon be observed with new generation gravity telescopes.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3128396

Terrence J. Sejnowski

The discovery of many possible sources of gravitational radiation, such as neutron stars, compact x‐ray sources, rapidly rotating binary novae and the violent events occurring in quasars and galactic nuclei, has opened a new era of general‐relativity physics. In the 1960’s nearly all workers in the field considered the detection of gravitational radiation “exceedingly unlikely.” From this pessimistic estimate the balance of opinion has shifted to the optimistic view that gravitational radiation, a crucial prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, is now within reach of current experimental techniques.

This article is only available in PDF format

References

1. F. A. E. Pirani in Gravitation: An Introduction to Current Research (L. Witten, ed.) John Wiley and Sons, Inc. New York (1962), page 199.
2. J. Logan, PHYSICS TODAY, March 1973, page 44.
3. C. Will, “Theoretical Tools of Experimental. Gravitation” in Proceedings of Course 56 of the International School of Physics “Enrico Fermi” (B. Bertotti, ed.) Academic, New York (in press).
4. C. W. Misner, K. S. Thorne, J. A. Wheeler, Gravitation, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, (1973).
5. D. Eardley, D. Lee, A. Lightman, R. Wagoner, C. Will, Phys. Rev. Lett. 30, 884 (1973).https://doi.org/PRLTAO
6. R. P. Kraft, Trans. I. A. U., 12B, 519 (1966).
7. B. Paczynski, Acta. Astr., 17, 287 (1967);
J. Faulkner, Astrophys. J., 170, L99 (1971).https://doi.org/ASJOAB
8. W. H. Press, K. S. Thorne, “Gravitational Wave Astronomy,” in Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 10, 335 (1972).https://doi.org/ARAAAJ
9. Proceedings of the Sixth Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, December 1972. To be published in the Proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1973.
10. Proceedings of International Astronomical Union Symposium No. 64 on Gravitational Radiation and Gravitational Collapse, Sept. 4–8, Warsaw, Poland, (to be published).
11. J. Weber, R. W. Clemens in Magic Without Magic: John Archibald Wheeler, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco (1972); page 223.
12. R. Ruffini, “On the Energetics of Black Holes” in Black Holes Les Houches 1972, Gordon and Breach, New York (1973); page 451.
13. C. W. Misner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 28, 994 (1972), and to be published in ref. 10.https://doi.org/PRLTAO
14. G. W. Gibbons, S. W. Hawking, Phys. Rev. D4, 2191 (1971).https://doi.org/PRVDAQ
15. G. Moss, L. Miller, R. Forward, Applied Optics 10, 2495 (1971).https://doi.org/APOPAI
16. R. Weiss, Progress Rep. No. 105, Res, Lab. Electron, M.I.T. (1972).
17. J. Weber, “Gravitational Radiation Experiments and Instrumentation,” in Proceedings of Course 56 of the International School of Physics “Enrico Fermi,” (B. Bertotti, ed.) Academic, New York (1973).

More about the authors

Terrence J. Sejnowski, University of California, Santa Barbara.