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Figure 1:
In Einstein’s theory, gravitational waves have two independent polarizations. The effect on proper separations of particles in a circular ring in the ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 2:
Mass-radius plot for gravitational wave sources. The horizontal axis is the total mass of a radiating system, and the vertical axis is its size. Typical values from various sources for ground-based and space-based detectors are shown. Lines give order-of-magnitude constraints and relations. Characteristic frequencies are estimated from ![]() |
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Figure 3:
The relative orientation of the sky and detector frames (left panel) and the effect of a rotation by the angle ![]() |
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Figure 4:
The antenna pattern of an interferometric detector (left panel) with the arms in the ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 5:
The right panel plots the noise amplitude spectrum, ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 6:
The sensitivity of interferometers in terms of the limiting energy flux they can detect, Jy/Hz, (left panel) and in terms of the gravitational wave amplitude with lines of constant flux levels (right panel). |
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Figure 7:
Time-frequency maps showing the track left by the inspiral of a small black hole falling into an SMBH as expected in LISA data. The left panel is for a central black hole without spin and the right panel is for a central black hole whose dimensionless spin parameter is ![]() |
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Figure 8:
Normal mode frequencies (left) and corresponding quality factors (right) of fundamental modes with ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 9:
The smallest fraction of black hole mass in ringdown waveforms that is needed to observe the fundamental mode at a distance of 3 Gpc (left) for three values of the black hole spin, ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 10:
Comparison of waveforms from the analytical EOB approach (left) and numerical relativity simulations (right) for the same initial conditions. The two approaches predict very similar values for the total energy emitted in gravitational waves and the final spin of the black hole. Figure from [96]. |
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Figure 11:
The final spin of a black hole that results from the merger of two equal mass black holes of aligned spins (top panel) and nonspinning unequal mass black holes (middle panel). The bottom panel shows the region in the parameter space that results in an overall flip in the spin-orbit orientation of the system. Figure reprinted with permission from [312]. See text for details. Ⓒ ![]() |
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Figure 12:
One-sigma errors in the time of coalescence, chirpmass and symmetric mass ratio for sources with a fixed SNR (left panels) and at a fixed distance (right panels). The errors in the time of coalescence are given in ms, while in the case of chirpmass and symmetric mass ratio they are fractional errors. These plots are for nonspinning black hole binaries; the errors reduce greatly when dynamical evolution of spins are included in the computation of the covariance matrix. Slightly modified figure from [51]. |
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Figure 13:
Distribution of measurement accuracy for a binary merger consisting of two black holes of masses ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 14:
The SNR integrand of a restricted (left panel) and full waveform (right panel) as seen in initial LIGO. We have shown three systems, in which the smaller body’s mass is the same, to illustrate the effect of the mass ratio. In all cases the system is at 100 Mpc and the binary’s orbit is oriented at 45° with respect to the line of sight. |
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Figure 15:
Sky map of the gain in angular resolution for LISA observations of the final year of inspirals using full waveforms with harmonics versus restricted post-Newtonian waveforms with only the dominant harmonic, corresponding to the equal mass case ( ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Figure 16:
By fitting the Fourier transform of an observed signal to a post-Newtonian expansion, one can measure the various post-Newtonian coefficients ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2009-2 | ![]() This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Problems/comments to |