The currently accepted model for gamma-ray burst phenomena involves the violent formation of a rapidly rotating solar mass black hole. Gravitational waves should be associated with the black-hole formation, and their detection would permit this model to be tested, the black hole progenitor (e.g., coalescing binary or collapsing stellar core) identified, and the origin of the gamma rays (within ...

With gravitational-wave detection on the horizon, astronomers look for ways of extracting useful information from a detected gravitational wave. Like its electromagnetic cousin, a gravitational wave carries important information about the characteristics of its source, and these characteristics can be recovered through numerical analysis. Using one promising technique known as a Metropolis-Hast...

We consider light waves propagating clockwise and other light waves propagating counterclockwise around a closed path in a plane (theoretically with the help of stationary mirrors). The time difference between the two light propagating path orientations constitutes the Sagnac effect. The general relativistic expression for the Sagnac effect is discussed. It is shown that a gravitational wave in...

Observed angular positions and redshifts of large-scale structure tracers such as galaxies are affected by gravitational waves through volume distortion and magnification effects. Thus, a gravitational wave background can in principle be probed through clustering statistics of large-scale structures. We calculate the observed angular clustering of galaxies in the presence of a gravitational wav...

Einstein’s equations admit solutions corresponding to photon rockets. In these a massive particle recoils because of the anisotropic emission of photons. In this paper we ask whether rocket motion can be powered only by the emission of gravitational waves. We use the double series approximation method and show that this is possible. A loss of mass and gain in momentum arise in the second approx...

A single spherical antenna is capable of measuring the direction and polarization of a gravitational wave. It is possible to solve the inverse problem using only linear algebra even in the presence of noise. The simplicity of this solution enables one to explore the error on the solution using standard techniques. In this paper we derive the error on the direction and polarization measurements ...

We present a simple sandwich gravitational wave of the Robinson–Trautman family. This is interpreted as representing a shock wave with a spherical wavefront which propagates into a Minkowski background minus a wedge. (i.e. the background contains a cosmic string.) The deficit angle (the tension) of the string decreases through the gravitational wave, which then ceases. This leaves an expanding ...

An overview of some tools and techniques being developed for data conditioning (regression of instrumental and environmental artifacts from the data channel), detector design evaluation (modeling the science “reach” of alternative detector designs and configurations), noise simulations for mock data challenges and analysis system validation, and analyses for the detection of gravitational radia...

We present new results for pulsating neutron stars. We have calculated the eigenfrequencies of the modes that one would expect to be the most important gravitationalwave sources: the fundamental fluid f -mode, the first pressure p-mode and the first gravitational-wave w-mode, for twelve realistic equations of state. From this numerical data we have inferred a set of “empirical relations” betwee...

The first decade of the new millennium should see the first direct detections of gravitational waves. This will be a milestone or fundamental physics and it will open the new observational science of gravitational wave astronomy. But gravitational waves already play an important role in the modeling of astrophysical systems. I review here the present state of gravitational radiation theory in r...