Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Self-Force On Accelerated Particles, Thomas Michael Linz

Theses and Dissertations

The likelihood that gravitational waves from stellar-size black holes spiraling into a supermassive black hole would be detectable by a space based gravitational wave observatory has spurred the interest in studying the extreme mass-ratio inspiral (EMRI) problem and black hole perturbation theory (BHP). In this approach, the smaller black hole is treated as a point particle and its trajectory deviates from a geodesic due to the interaction with its own field. This interaction is known as the gravitational self-force, and it includes both a damping force, commonly known as radiation reaction, as well as a conservative force. The computation of …

Topics In Broadband Gravitational-Wave Astronomy, Sydney Joanne Chamberlin

Theses and Dissertations

The direct detection of gravitational waves promises to open a new observational window onto the universe, and a number of large scale efforts are underway worldwide to make such a detection a reality. In this work, we attack some of the current problems in gravitational-wave detection over a wide range of frequencies.

In the first part of this work, low frequency gravitational-wave detection is considered using pulsar timing arrays (PTAs). PTAs are a promising tool for probing the universe through gravitational radiation. Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs), cosmic strings, relic gravitational waves from inflation, and first order phase transitions in …