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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

A Complete Analytic Gravitational Wave Model For Undergraduates, Dillon Buskirk, Maria Babiuc-Hamilton Jan 2019

A Complete Analytic Gravitational Wave Model For Undergraduates, Dillon Buskirk, Maria Babiuc-Hamilton

Physics Faculty Research

Gravitational waves are produced by orbiting massive binary objects, such as black holes and neutron stars, and propagate as ripples in the very fabric of space-time. As the waves carry off orbital energy, the two bodies spiral into each other and eventually merge. They are described by Einstein's equations of general relativity. For the early phase of the orbit, called the inspiral, Einstein equations can be linearised and solved through analytical approximations, while for the late phase, near the merger, we need to solve the fully nonlinear Einstein's equations on supercomputers. In order to recover the gravitational wave for the …


Analytic Modeling Of Eccentric Binary Black Holes : From Inspiral To Merger, Dillon Paige Buskirk Jan 2019

Analytic Modeling Of Eccentric Binary Black Holes : From Inspiral To Merger, Dillon Paige Buskirk

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The orbital evolution of black hole binaries is described by two main phases: the inspiral and the merger. Using the post-Newtonian (PN) theory for the inspiral phase of the binary, we build up a Mathematica script to obtain strain waveforms for the inspiral. We expand our previous inspiral formulation to include eccentric orbits, which greatly complicates the calculations. Since this model breaks down as the two bodies approach merger, a separate model for the merger and ring-down is required. This part of the evolution is highly non-linear and numerical relativity (NR) is required to simulate this problem. However, this is …