Gravitational waves Definition and 332 Threads

Hulse and Taylor's observation of PSR B1913+16 provides indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves ("GW") in accordance with GR. Simulations show recoil of merging black holes due to the momentum of the GW they emit during the inspiral. http://www.black-holes.org/explore2.html...

Hi all, I am trying to out what happens when a gravitational wave caused by a monochromatic, electromagnetic plane wave interacts with a charged particle. As we all know, the electromagnetic wave causes the particle to follow a figure of eight shaped path (in the particles rest frame anyway)...

Since at event horizon, the escape velocity of black hole must be greater than speed of light but even light can't escape from black hole so is it possible that speed of gravitational wave > c?

I'm learning about gravitational waves and associated matters (detectors etc.). I don't do much maths, but physics is in my bones. Totally at home with classical physics and SR; as for GR- well, I'm O.K. as long as you stay on the 'friendly' side of event horizons... I'm comfortable with the...

I was wandering through the net when I came to know that the Newtonian gravitation suffers discrepancies at some regions of space. On further reading I came to know about gravitational waves. Fundamentally matter has mass and mass is responsible for gravity. Then it may be anything from small...

Anybody could explain me the difference between tidal forces and gravitational waves? My question emerges from the fact that gravitational waves has never been detected and also considering that tidal forces are very well understood by current physicist. Thanks AG

Gravitational waves are generated when the mass quadrupole moment changes in time. We also know motion of mass contributes to its gravitation. Does the producing process of gravitational waves, which involves mass in accelerated motion, produce gravitation as well? If so, is it of less, equal...

Homework Statement A star 10 light-years away explodes and produces gravitational waves. How long will it take these waves to reach the earth? Homework Equations The problem is, I don't know what equations to use or if it's just a matter of simple math. The Attempt at a Solution...

To detect gravitational waves, we set up some probe masses in laboratories far from each other and measure distance between them. Why not use GPS satellites for that? I mean: they have precise atomic clocks, they constantly measure their position relative to each other and they are as far away...

Does a massive particle that is accelerated emit gravitational waves? What if the acceleration is due to a gravitational field?

Helo everybody..good evening sir .. this ismy first post and i just finish High school and thinking about going to a college.. i'm just wondering what are gravitational waves./thx.

Have gravitational waves been directly detected yet?

Does anyone know how the progress is on the attempts to detect gravitational waves with interferometry? As far as I know there are only null-results up to this date, but maybe I am misinformed? The recent supernova in the galaxy Messier 101, should it generate gravitational waves of...

In BLACK HOLES AND TIME WARPS Kip Thorne writes: So why is it that gravitational waves alone are "not at all distorted"?? For example, don't they combine [maybe even non linearly] with other gravitational waves?...they must interact with matter, otherwise we wouldn't be able to detect...

After the big bang, did the cosmic inflation of space occur as a gravitational wave?

Hello, I was wondering, since gravitational waves carry energy-momentum, would it be possible to find them in regions where the components of the metric tensor vanish? That is to say, empty space (non-quantum) is described by a vanishing energy-momentum tensor - but then, if gravitational waves...

I'd like to share with you people this great discovery! http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.2389 A 12 minute Orbital Period Detached White Dwarf Eclipsing Binary Warren R. Brown (1), Mukremin Kilic (1), J. J. Hermes (2), Carlos Allende Prieto (3), Scott J. Kenyon (1), D. E. Winget (2) ((1) SAO...

I've read a newspaper article which claims: "If the search for gravitational waves succeeds, then Einstein's theory of general relativity may have to be revised" But I thought that Einstein predicted gravitational waves, so surely if they are found, it would confirm general relativity. I don't...

In case of electromagnetic fields i think it is like this: A electromagnetic wave is caused by an accelerating charge, this causes a temporal change in the electric and magnetic field around it which propagates through space at the velocity of light. If we have a transmitter and multiple...

Would gravitational waves act just like other types of waves? IE can they interfere, diffract, etc? I would assume no to some of those, as I don't think there is anything that would cause them to diffract as they aren't EM waves or waves through a materiel. But I don't know really. Any thoughts?

Homework Statement Determine the Christoffel symbol \Gamma^{t}_{xx} for the metric ds^2 = -c^2dt^2 + (1+h\sin(\omega t))dx^2 + (1-h\sin(\omega t))dy^2 + dz^2 The answer should be: \frac{h\omega}{2} \cos(\omega t) Homework Equations For the evaluation we have to use...

Hello, I have a BA physics but I've never taken GR. My question is whether gravity is a force in GR? the answer i get everywhere is that it isn't a force, but rather the curvature of space. And objects moving under 'gravity' is simply them moving along a geodesic. But then i keep hearing the...

According to the Wikipedia article on Gravitomagnetism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitomagnetism There is a gravitational analog of maxwell's field equations that is valid for weak gravitational fields. Basically all you have to do is replace eps_0 in maxwell's equations with -1/4...

The usual derivation of the wave form equations from the GR field equations is done in the weak field, linearized approximation of the GR theory. In this limit, that ignores non-linear contributions and that gives accurate results when used to predict solutions for problems in the Newtonian...

Hey guys. So in the einstein gauge the linear field equations can reduce to the wave equations: \partial^{2} _{t}h_{ab} - \nabla^{2}h_{ab} = 0 where here h_{ab} is the symmetric tensor containing the deviation of the gravitational field from minkowski space for the weak field. How can one...

Hi all! I was browsing Wikipedia when I came upon the following article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitomagnetism It seems here they state a form of the complete linearized Einstein equations that resembles very much (or is mathematically identical to that of) Maxwell's equations...

Can you explain for me what part of general relativity says that gravity must go outward from the body at the speed of light, rather than instantly? I realize that Einstein believed nothing could go faster than the speed of light, but is there evidence that this must be so in the case of...

As I understood from relativity,for an accelerated object,the space-time is curved.because that curvature needs to be at the place of the object and because the object is moving,the curvature must move too, which I think is called a gravitational wave.So when an accelerated object passes near...

Are gravitational waves (where the field varies with time) possible in a static spacetime(no time derivatives)? I would expect them to be predicted only in a expanding spacetime but I'm not totally sure.

Time dilation and black-hole--black-hole mergers, and ringdown gravitational waves An observer far away from an event horizon never sees a particle cross the event horizon. How does this effect the apparent merger of two black holes? Also, I've seen that the gravitational waves during the...

I want to confirm one thing. Say, I have an emitter of gravitational waves with frequency f. I throw it into black hole. Is it correct to assume that: 1. frequency f and energy of GR waves are decreased in exactly the same manner as frequency and energy of ordinary light? 2. and GR...

I've read that the discovery of gravitational waves will further support the big bang theory at the expense of M-theory. What's the specific difference between the two models that relates to gravitational waves? Is it that a brane collision would not produce the waves at the beginning of the...

Considering they will eventually be colliding gold or lead ions, will they measure or be able to measure the gravitational impact of the collisions? Just curious since the velocity will be so extreme. I would think Tevatron would already have something to say about this, but I'm unsure of...

When viewing the light coming from distant galaxies, it is my understanding that there are 2 redshifts occurring, the doppler effect from the galaxies' peculiar motions, and the cosmological redshift from space itself expanding. For the cosmological redshift, I visualize a square of space...

Do Gravitational waves bend like light in the presences of a strong gravitational field.

I'm wondering if gravitational waves can have a wide range of frequencies and wavelengths much like EM waves, or if they are more uniform and only vary in amplitude. Also, should gravitational waves experience a Doppler shift?

This paper http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.0658 nails down the interpretation of a binary white dwarf system with an orbital period of only 5.4 minutes, versus 8 hours for the celebrated Hulse-Taylor binary neutron star system. This would probably be the strongest source in the sky of steady...

If gravitational waves have such tiny amplitudes (typically several orders of magnitude smaller than a proton), then why do we model them entirely in terms of general relativity? Aren't quantum effects important at this scale?

We know that the orbital period of binary stars decay due to the emission of gravity waves that carry away energy from the system. What is the form of the energy loss of the system: kinetic energy or potential energy?

We know that the orbital period of binary stars decay due to the emission of gravity waves that carry away energy from the system. What is the form of the energy loss of the system: kinetic energy or potential energy?

What is the state-of-the-art of detecting gravity waves. Are the instruments available now sufficiently sensitive to detect gravity waves? Have we identified 'low-hanging' sources from which gravity waves should have been detectable. Have we yet reached the point where doubts are arising as to...

What is the state-of-the-art of detecting gravity waves. Are the instruments available now sufficiently sensitive to detect gravity waves? Have we identified 'low-hanging' sources from whom gravity waves should have been detectable. Have we yet reached that point where serious questions are...

Gravitational waves are generated when the mass quadrupole moment changes in time. We also know motion of mass contributes to its gravitation. Does the producing process of gravitational waves, which involves mass in accelerated motion, produce gravitation as well? If so, is it of less, equal...

What effect would a train of gravitational waves have when it hits a solid sphere of mass? We know about its expected effect on a dust sphere where it is ellipsed alternately in x and y direction. I would like to know how would an isolated solid sphere be affected when it is hit by a train of...

If gravitational waves formed interference patterns, or just simply interfere as normal waves, couldn't that result in gravitational anomalies in absence of mass? Destructive interference could be thought of as negative gravity(dark energy), leading to expansive "forces", whilst constructive...

A little question which I thought of today. I thought about what happened in a medium with Lorentz transformation. With a refraction index n, the speed of light is altered to c/n. However, as far as I can see now this shouldn't influence the Lorentztransformations, right? It's tempting to put...

What does string theory have to say about this and how has string theory changed cosmology in terms of verifiable observational predictions?

I've been trying to get my head around relativity etc and struggling :-( However there's one thing that I can't find much information about at an interested-layman level - gravitational waves. They're described as having a frequency etc (being waves) and traveling at light speed. But if they...

I've been given Gravitational Waves: Theory and Experiments Volume I to read for a project. The problem is, I haven't learned General Relativity to a high enough level and the book is proving very difficult for me. The book dives straight into linearised gravity in the first chapter, and the...

As far as I know, a black hole is a singularity in the space-time. The space-time becomes so curved that the geodesics can't get out, i.e., the gravitational field becomes so strong that information can not get out. OK! But what about gravitational waves? As far as I know, gravitational waves...