Topics

The list below is a wish list of topics to be covered in this course. Each subject listed here is very rich and can be the topic of a dedicated course. The aim of this particular course is to give an overview. [link placeholder]

Part 1: Introduction and Motivation (~2 weeks)

• Scope and spirit of the course

• The gravitational wave frequency landscape. Detectors and their bandpasses.

• Objects detectable in each band and fundamental considerations (orbital decay, GW frequencies and orbital decay times for different families of sources)

• Gravitational wave signals in the strain-frequency diagram 

Part 2: General Relativity and Gravitational Waves

• Particle dynamics in fixed spacetimes: Minkowski, Schwarzschild, and Kerr

• Dynamical spacetime: Tolmann-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations, post-Minkowski approximation

• Linearized gravity and gravitational waves, gravitational waves at leading order: quadrupole formula

• Newtonian 2-body problem (Conic Section orbits) and the restricted 3-body problem (prelude to accretion and binary evolution)

Part 3: Astrophysics of Gravitational Wave Sources: Stellar and Supermassive Binaries

• Fast and furious overview of stellar evolution, extra processes that affect binary evolution

• Evolution of massive binary stars leading to binaries with at least one black hole or neutron star (properties of systems known from EM and GW observations)

• Evolution of low-mass stars leading to binaries with at least one white dwarf (properties of systems known from EM observations)

• Galaxy evolution via mergers leading to binary supermassive black holes. 

• Evolution of a fiducial supermassive binary. 

• Predictions of source distribution and constraints from the GW background.