Gravitational waves (GWs), i.e. small deformations of spacetime traveling at the speed of light, are a fundamental consequence of Einstein's general theory of relativity. There has been no direct observation of GWs so far, although first indirect evidence was found in the observed inspiral of the binary pulsar PSR 1913+16, which agreed to within 1% with the predictions of general relativity [75, 88]. Similar measurements on the recently discovered “double pulsar” system have allowed to improve these experimental tests of General Relativity to the level of 0.05%. GWs are purely transverse waves, characterized by two polarization states (denoted as ‘+’ and ‘×’, respectively). These two polarization bases differ by a rotation of 45° around the propagation axis, corresponding to the quadrupolar (spin-2) nature of the gravitational field. In contrast, the two polarization bases of electromagnetic waves differ by a rotation of 90°, reflecting the dipolar (spin-1) nature of the electromagnetic field.
CITATION STYLE
Prix, R. (2009). Gravitational Waves from Spinning Neutron Stars. In Neutron Stars and Pulsars (pp. 651–685). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-76965-1_24
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