English

The physics of gravitational waves

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2026-04-20 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

These lecture notes collect the material that I have been using over the years for various short courses on the physics of gravitational waves, first at the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (France), and then at SISSA (Italy) and various summer/winter schools. The level should be appropriate for PhD students in physics or for MSc students that have taken a first course in general relativity. The focus is on deriving results from first principles, rather than on astrophysical applications.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2303.11713,
  title  = {The physics of gravitational waves},
  author = {Enrico Barausse},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.11713},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

64 pages, 15 figures. Published by POS for the proceedings of the September 2022 summer school of the COST Action CA18108 on "Theoretical and experimental approaches to quantum gravity phenomenology" (Belgrade, Serbia). Later updated [v2] to include additional sections on relation between SNR and FAR, stochastic background characterization, pulsar timing arrays

R2 v1 2026-06-28T09:25:53.417Z