Gravitational Waves: the theorist's Swiss knife

TL;DR

This paper discusses how gravitational waves serve as a versatile tool for testing a wide range of astrophysical, cosmological, and fundamental physics models, highlighting detection methods and implications.

Contribution

It provides an overview of gravitational-wave background detection techniques, constraints on models, and the physical insights gained from transient gravitational wave events.

Findings

Constraints on cosmological models from non-detectability

Detection methods for gravitational-wave background

Implications of transient gravitational wave signals

Abstract

Gravitational waves provide a novel and powerful way to test astrophysical models of compact objects, early universe processes, beyond the Standard Model particle physics, dark matter candidates, Einstein's theory of General Relativity and extended gravity models, and even quantum gravity candidate theories. A short introduction to the gravitational-wave background and the method we are using to detect it will be presented. Constraints on various astrophysical/cosmological models from the non-detectability of the gravitational-wave background will be discussed. Gravitational waves from transients will be highlighted and their physical implications will be summarised.