Gravitational Radiation from Two-Body Systems

TL;DR

This paper discusses the importance of high-order post-Newtonian solutions to accurately model gravitational waves from binary systems for detection by LIGO and VIRGO.

Contribution

It highlights the necessity of extending post-Newtonian approximations to higher orders for precise gravitational wave templates.

Findings

Post-Newtonian templates are known up to 3.5PN order.

High-order approximations improve detection accuracy.

Essential for analyzing signals from compact binary inspirals.

Abstract

Thanks to the new generation of gravitational wave detectors LIGO and VIRGO, the theory of general relativity will face new and important confrontations to observational data with unprecedented precision. Indeed the detection and analysis of the gravitational waves from compact binary star systems requires beforehand a very precise solution of the two-body problem within general relativity. The approximation currently used to solve this problem is the post-Newtonian one, and must be pushed to high order in order to describe with sufficient accuracy (given the sensitivity of the detectors) the inspiral phase of compact bodies, which immediately precedes their final merger. The resulting post-Newtonian ``templates'' are currently known to 3.5PN order, and are used for searching and deciphering the gravitational wave signals in VIRGO and LIGO.