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A
binary system composed of two compact objects, neutron stars or black
holes (and also white dwarfs) is the typical good emitter of
gravitational waves. This is why those systems constitute the main
target for the interferometric wave observatories. If a direct
detection would be an important first result, the existence of the
waves themselves is no longer to be proven since the discovery of the
binary pulsar of Hulse and Taylor. The idea is more to use the waves as
a new way of investigating the properties of the sources.
I will review the three main populations of compact binaries that are
the stellar mass ones, the supermassive black holes binaries and the
extreme mass ratio systems. For each of those cases, I will detail the
perspectives for detection, in terms of the expected signals and
detection rates. I will also show what can be expected in terms of the
physics of the sources. Let us mention for instance the constraints on
the equation of state of the neutron stars for the stellar binaries,
some indications on galaxy formation for the supermassive ones or some
tests of general relativity in the case of the extreme mass ratio
systems.
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Bibliography
- "Physics,
Astrophysics and Cosmology with Gravitational Waves", B.S.
Sathyaprakash et Bernard F. Schutz,, Living Rev. Relativity 12,
(2009), 2. http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2009-2
- "Gravitational waves from merging compact binaries", S.A. Hughes, Ann. Rev. Astro. Astrophys. 47, 107 (2009). arxiv:0903.4877
- "Physics
of relativistic objects in compact binaries: from birth to coalescence"
M. Colpi, P. Casella, V. Gorini, U. Morschella et A. Possenti,
Springer-Verlag (2008)
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