Gravitational Waves from Compact Sources

TL;DR

This paper reviews high-frequency gravitational wave sources, focusing on their emission mechanisms, expected signals, and potential to reveal details about compact objects and their extreme states.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of gravitational wave sources from compact objects, highlighting their significance for understanding dense matter and astrophysical processes.

Findings

Black hole and neutron star formation are key GW sources.

Gravitational wave signals can reveal internal structure of compact objects.

Merger events produce detectable high-frequency gravitational waves.

Abstract

We review sources of high-frequency gravitational waves, summarizing our current understanding of emission mechanisms, expected amplitudes and event rates. The most promising sources are gravitational collapse (formation of black holes or neutron stars) and subsequent ringing of the compact star, secular or dynamical rotational instabilities and high-mass compact objects formed through the merger of binary neutron stars. Significant and unique information for the various stages of the collapse, the structure of protoneutron stars and the high density equation of state of compact objects can be drawn from careful study of gravitational wave signals.