Gravitational wave astronomy and cosmology

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances and future prospects in gravitational wave detection, emphasizing their potential for groundbreaking cosmological insights across multiple frequency bands.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current gravitational wave detectors and discusses their expected impact on cosmology in the near future.

Findings

Detection of gravitational waves from compact objects expected soon.

Pulsar timing arrays are improving bounds on nanohertz gravitational waves.

Space-based interferometers have strong potential for cosmological measurements.

Abstract

The first direct observation of gravitational waves' action upon matter has recently been reported by the BICEP2 experiment. Advanced ground-based gravitational-wave detectors are being installed. They will soon be commissioned, and then begin searches for high-frequency gravitational waves at a sensitivity level that is widely expected to reach events involving compact objects like stellar mass black holes and neutron stars. Pulsar timing arrays continue to improve the bounds on gravitational waves at nanohertz frequencies, and may detect a signal on roughly the same timescale as ground-based detectors. The science case for space-based interferometers targeting millihertz sources is very strong. The decade of gravitational-wave discovery is poised to begin. In this writeup of a talk given at the 2013 TAUP conference, we will briefly review the physics of gravitational waves and gravitational-wave detectors, and then discuss the promise of these measurements for making cosmological measurements in the near future.