Gravity Waves, Chaos, and Spinning Compact Binaries
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2009-10-31 v3 Astrophysics
chao-dyn
Chaotic Dynamics
Abstract
Spinning compact binaries are shown to be chaotic in the Post-Newtonian expansion of the two body system. Chaos by definition is the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions and a consequent inability to predict the outcome of the evolution. As a result, the spinning pair will have unpredictable gravitational waveforms during coalescence. This poses a challenge to future gravity wave observatories which rely on a match between the data and a theoretical template.
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9910040,
title = {Gravity Waves, Chaos, and Spinning Compact Binaries},
author = {Janna Levin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9910040},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Final version published in PRL