2009/03/31 by Scott A. Hughes
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #astro-ph.CO #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-082708-101711
published as Ann.Rev.Astron.Astrophys.47:107-157,2009 · 90 pages, 12 figures. Invited review to appear in Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Further minor tweaks in response to reader feedback
arxiv created 2009/04/18 · openalex publication_date 2009/08/20 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Largely motivated by the development of highly sensitive gravitational-wave detectors, our understanding of merging compact binaries and the gravitational waves they generate has improved dramatically in recent years. Breakthroughs in numerical relativity now allow us to model the coalescence of two black holes with no approximations or simplifications. There has also been outstanding progress in our analytical understanding of binaries. We review these developments, examining merging binaries using black hole perturbation theory, post-Newtonian expansions, and direct numerical integration of the field equations. We summarize these approaches and what they have taught us about gravitational waves from compact binaries. We place these results in the context of gravitational-wave generating systems, analyzing the impact gravitational-wave emission has on their sources, as well as what we can learn about them from direct gravitational-wave measurements.