Astrophysics (Index)About

continuous gravitational wave

(long-lasting repeating GWs such as from orbits)

Continuous gravitational waves are gravitational waves that repeat their oscillations over long periods of time. All orbiting astronomical bodies are producing such repeating waves, which constitute much of the gravitational wave background (GWB), which merely means current detection efforts aren't capable of "un-blending" their individual signals. The most distinct such wave signal for us would be those of small orbits of high-mass bodies that are nearby, but even these blend into a background in which individual contributors become evident only for a few seconds after orbital decay reduces particularly massive bodies (black holes or neutron stars) into the inspiral leading to a merger. The best chance of isolating the continuous waves of an individual orbit is through analysis of signal data collected over a very long time. Detected inspirals would seem to offer to likely instances to search for in earlier data.


(physics,gravity,relativity,wave)
Further reading:
https://www.ligo.org/science/GW-Continuous.php
https://www.aei.mpg.de/continuouswaves
https://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlight/continuousGW/

Index