No Arabic abstract
We study the Galactic field population of double compact objects (NS-NS, BH-NS, BH-BH binaries) to investigate the number (if any) of these systems that can potentially be detected with LISA at low gravitational-wave frequencies. We calculate the Galactic numbers and physical properties of these binaries and show their relative contribution from the disk, bulge and halo. Although the Galaxy hosts 10^5 double compact object binaries emitting low-frequency gravitational waves, only a handful of these objects in the disk will be detectable with LISA, but none from the halo or bulge. This is because the bulk of these binaries are NS-NS systems with high eccentricities and long orbital periods (weeks/months) causing inefficient signal accumulation (small number of signal bursts at periastron passage in 1 yr of LISA observations) rendering them undetectable in the majority of these cases. We adopt two evolutionary models that differ in their treatment of the common envelope phase that is a major (and still mostly unknown) process in the formation of close double compact objects. Depending on the adopted evolutionary model, our calculations indicate the likely detection of about 4 NS-NS binaries and 2 BH-BH systems (model A; likely survival of progenitors through CE) or only a couple of NS-NS binaries (model B; suppression of the double compact object formation due to CE mergers).
Microlensing started with the seminal paper by Paczynski in 1986, first with observations towards the Large Magellanic Cloud and the galactic bulge. Since then many other targets have been observed and new applications have been found. In particular, it turned out to be a powerful method to detect planets in our galaxy and even in the nearby M31. Here, we will present some results obtained so far by microlensing without being, however, exhaustive.
A brief history and various themes of mid-frequency gravitational wave detection are presented more or less following historical order -- Laser Interferometry, Atom Interferometry (AI), Torsion Bar Antenna (TOBA), and Superconducting Omni-directional Gravitational Radiation Observatory (SOGRO). Both Earth-based and Space-borne concepts are reviewed with outlook on expected astrophysical sources
Direct detection of gravitational radiation in the audio band is being pursued with a network of kilometer-scale interferometers (LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA). Several space missions (LISA, DECIGO, BBO) have been proposed to search for sub-Hz radiation from massive astrophysical sources. Here we examine the potential sensitivity of three ground-based detector concepts aimed at radiation in the 0.1 -- 10,Hz band. We describe the plethora of potential astrophysical sources in this band and make estimates for their event rates and thereby, the sensitivity requirements for these detectors. The scientific payoff from measuring astrophysical gravitational waves in this frequency band is great. Although we find no fundamental limits to the detector sensitivity in this band, the remaining technical limits will be extremely challenging to overcome.
The focus of this Chapter is on describing the prospective sources of the gravitational wave universe accessible to present and future observations, from kHz, to mHz down to nano-Hz frequencies. The multi-frequency gravitational wave universe gives a deep view into the cosmos, inaccessible otherwise. It has as main actors core-collapsing massive stars, neutron stars, coalescing compact object binaries of different flavours and stellar origin, coalescing massive black hole binaries, extreme mass ratio inspirals, and possibly the very early universe itself. Here, we highlight the science aims and describe the gravitational wave signals expected from the sources and the information gathered in it. We show that the observation of gravitational wave sources will play a transformative role in our understanding of the processes ruling the formation and evolution of stars and black holes, galaxy clustering and evolution, the nature of the strong forces in neutron star interiors, and the most mysterious interaction of Nature: gravity. The discovery, by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration, of the first source of gravitational waves from the cosmos GW150914, and the superb technological achievement of the space mission LISA Pathfinder herald the beginning of the new phase of exploration of the universe.
We investigate the wave effects of gravitational waves (GWs) using numerical simulations with the finite element method (FEM) based on the publicly available code {it deal.ii}. We robustly test our code using a point source monochromatic spherical wave. We examine not only the waveform observed by a local observer but also the global energy conservation of the waves. We find that our numerical results agree very well with the analytical predictions. Based on our code, we study the scattering of GWs by compact objects. Using monochromatic waves as the input source, we find that if the wavelength of GWs is much larger than the Schwarzschild radius of the compact object, the amplitude of the total scattered GWs does not change appreciably due to the strong diffraction effect, for an observer far away from the scatterer. This finding is consistent with the results reported in the literature. However, we also find that, near the scatterer, not only the amplitude of the scattered waves is very large, comparable to that of the incident waves, but also the phase of the GWs changes significantly due to the interference between the scattered and incident waves. As the evolution of the phase of GWs plays a crucial role in the matched filtering technique in extracting GW signals from the noisy background, our findings suggest that wave effects should be taken into account in the data analysis in the future low-frequency GW experiments, if GWs are scattered by nearby compact objects in our local environment.