Tides in Coalescing Neutron Star Binaries
Nevin Weinberg
MIT
Within the next few years, advanced versions of ground-based gravitational
wave observatories such as LIGO and Virgo are expected to detect the
first gravitational waves from the merger of neutron star binaries. Tidal
interactions in such systems extract energy from the orbit and, at some
level, modify the gravitational wave signal. Previous studies found
that tidal effects are probably too small to be detected with advanced
LIGO and Virgo. However, these studies all assumed that the tide can be
treated as a linear perturbation to the star. In this talk I will show
that the linear approximation is invalid even during the early stages of
inspiral and that nonlinear effects become important around the time the
binary first enters LIGO's bandpass. Although the precise influence of
nonlinear effects is not yet well constrained, I will show that they may
significantly modify the gravitational wave signal and electromagnetic
emission from coalescing neutron star binaries.
Date: | Mardi, le 12 mars 2013 |
Heure: | 16:00 |
Lieu: | Université McGill |
| Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, R.E. Bell Conference Room (room 103) |
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