2011/01/01 by Felix A. Aharonian, Joan Centrella, Werner Hofmann +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.HE #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.3635827
Based on an invited plenary talk at the 25th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics (Heidelberg, Dec. 2010), to appear in AIP Conf. Proc. 1381 (eds. F. Aharonian, W. Hofmann, F. Rieger)
openalex publication_date 2011/01/01 · arxiv created 2011/09/15 · arxiv updated 2015/05/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The gravitational wave window onto the universe is expected to open in ∼5 years, when ground‐based detectors make the first detections in the high‐frequency regime. Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime produced by the motions of massive objects such as black holes and neutron stars. Since the universe is nearly transparent to gravitational waves, these signals carry direct information about their sources—such as masses, spins, luminosity distances, and orbital parameters—through dense, obscured regions across cosmic time. This article explores gravitational waves as cosmic messengers, highlighting key sources, detection methods, and the astrophysical payoffs across the gravitational wave spectrum.