Joshua Raphael Lmus Castillo Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala

Gravitational Waves

October 5th. 2013, Guatemala City

A little bit of History

Predicted by Einstein in 1915 First indirect evidence of their existence by Hulse and Taylor in the 70s (1993 noble prize) (PSR B1913+16)

First direct evidence expected to be observed at 2015

What are they?

Gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of space-time caused by an accelerating mass that propagate as a wave.

They move at the speed of light (not at infinite speed as Newton thought)

What causes them?

Any two masses orbiting each other. Specially heavy masses accelerating really fast (i.e.: a binary system formed by two black bodies, a black body and a neutron star, two neutron stars, etc.)

How do they look like?

Propagation of a gravitational wave

Computed simulation of a gravitational wave caused by two black holes crashing It loses amplitude (attenuation) proportionally to the square of the distance it travels, but not because it`s interactions

What do they cause?

Plus-polarized G.W

Crosspolarized G.W A 3D effect of a G.W.

The particles are motionless The area does not change The particles do not change their position along with the wave

Their characteristics

Frequency: frequency for an oscilation of stretching-squeezing low frequencies from 107 to 105 Hz; high frequencies above 105 Hz and probably 1010 Hz) Wavelenght: distance betweeen points of maximum stretch or squeeze Speed: the speed of light Amplitude: fraction of separation between masses (h 10-20) c=f

Power radiated by orbiting bodies

G = Gravitational constant (6.67*10^-11) c = speed of light (3*10^8) r= orbiting ratio m1 & m2 = masses of the orbiting bodies

For the Earth-Sun system: P 200 wats

The systems actual mechanical energy is about 1.141036 Joules So itd take 11013 times more than the current age of the Universe for this masses to collide because of gravitational radiations loss

Orbital decay

What can we learn from gravitational waves?

Gravitational waves do not get scattered by their interactions, so it would be possible for us to see catch some waves from the very early universe (when light couldnt pass through interstellar dust) That way we can get a gravitational wave background better than the actual cosmic microwave background (CMB)

We can learn more from violent events such as supernovae, crashing binary systems, etc.

How can we detect them

Laser interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)