Gravitational wave astronomy

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Gravitational wave astronomy is the branch of astronomy that aims to derive information about celestial bodies and cosmic events with the help of gravitational waves . Gravitational waves are tiny distortions of space-time that travel through space at the speed of light . According to Einstein's general theory of relativity , they should arise in a variety of astronomically interesting situations, such as the merging of neutron stars and black holes , supernova explosions and in the early universe shortly after the Big Bang .

The direct detection of gravitational waves is the aim of international detector collaborations such as LIGO , GEO600 and Virgo . The results of gravitational wave astronomy are still indirect: the observations made so far set upper limits for the proportion of energy in the universe that is in the form of gravitational waves and for the extent of the unevenness of certain neutron stars. On February 11, 2016, the LIGO consortium announced that in September 2015, with the event GW150914, it had directly measured and thus detected gravitational waves from two colliding black holes for the first time.

See also

literature

  • Peter Aufmuth: On the threshold of gravitational wave astronomy . In: Sterne und Weltraum 46 (1), pp. 26–32 (2007). ( online )
  • Marcia Bartusiak: Einstein's Legacy. The race for the final riddle of the theory of relativity . European Publishing House 2005, ISBN 3-434-50529-6 .
  • Markus Pössel: The Einstein Window . Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-455-09494-5 .
  • Jolien DE Creighton, et al .: Gravitational-wave physics and astronomy - an introduction to theory, experiment and data analysis. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2011, ISBN 978-3-527-40886-3 .
  • David G. Blair: Advanced gravitational wave detectors. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-87429-8 .
  • Uwe Reichert: A new era in astrophysics. The age of gravitational wave astronomy has begun. In: Sterne und Weltraum 55 (4), pp. 24–35 (2016), ISSN  0039-1263 .

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