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Gravitation, Cosmology, and Cosmic-Ray Physics (1986) / Chapter Skim
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5. Search for Gravitational Waves: Highlights
Pages 42-48

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From page 42...
... Moreover, most stellar systems do not provide clean tests of gravitational physics for point masses, because tidal interactions, changes of stellar mass distribution, and mass exchange or mass loss cause unpredictable and often large changes in the orbit. Fortunately the binary pulsar does seem to be clean according to available observational evidence (see section on Systems of Compact Stars in Chapter 3~.
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From page 43...
... Independent evidence that the pulsar's companion star is also a collapsed star would settle this issue. In any case, these results already place stringent restrictions on alternative theories of gravity; in many theories, the decay rate of binary systems containing neutron stars or black holes is much greater than in general relativity theory owing to dipole gravitational radiation.
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From page 44...
... INTERFEROMETRIC DETECTORS Laboratory-scale interferometric antennas with arm lengths extending from 1.5 to 40 m are now in operation at several laboratories around the world. Two of these instruments have achieved displacement noise spectral densities of 10- cm HZ-/2 in the 1- to 10-kHz frequency range.
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From page 45...
... Also shown are the suspending wires, the cryostats and the towers containing seismic isolation filters. This bar has been successfully operated at 4 K
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From page 46...
... PULSAR TIMING AND MILLISECOND PULSARS The observed slowing-down rates of a number of radio pulsars are stable enough to afford useful upper limits on the amplitudes of low-freque~cy gravitational waves. Gravitational waves would shake the Earth or the pulsar and cause deviations in the observed uniformity of the period drift rate.
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From page 47...
... For instance, one model posits a close pair of white-dwarf stars as the presupernova object; mass accretion causes one star to spin up and eventually collapse, perhaps to a neutron star. Such a binary system would be a strong source of gravitational radiation at frequencies below 1 Hz; and the stellar collapse would be highly nonspherical, producing a strong burst of gravitational waves with frequencies around 1 kHz.
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From page 48...
... Perhaps detection of their gravitational waves will be our best handle on these intriguing processes.
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Key Terms

  • bar detectors
  • binary pulsar
  • neutron stars
  • gravitational radiation
  • strong sources

  • mass exchange
  • millisecond pulsars
  • orbital period
  • orbital decay
  • relativity predicts

  • black holes
  • laser power
  • decay rate
  • strain sensitivity
  • rapidly rotating

  • including errors
  • reduce thermal
  • orbit phase
  • intriguing processes
  • strong burst

  • mass accretion
  • compact binary
  • completely rule
  • stringent restrictions
  • nary pulsar

  • frequencies below
  • drift rate
  • spherically symmetric
  • moderately strong
  • little hope


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