Mathematics, physics, and technology
Mathematics, physics, and technology
Forum
Content available in: English Updated March 2024

Adventures in Predicting Gravitational Waves from Binary Black Holes

Buonanno and Damour present the field of gravitational-wave astronomy, opened in 2015, 100 years after Einstein’s theory of General  Relativity, when gravitational waves were first observed using laser interferometers.

This paper deals with the period that reaches from Einstein’s discovery of the theory of general relativity to the development of accurate analytical descriptions of the gravitational-wave (GW) signal emitted by binary systems composed of compact objects. In November 1915, Albert Einstein finalized the construction of the theory of general relativity. General relativity is both a new theory of the structure of space-time (generalizing Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity), and a new theory of gravitation (generalizing Newton’s 1687 universal law of gravitation). Einstein’s theory of general relativity revolutionized the basic physical concepts of space, time, and matter, and led to the introduction of new physical objects, notably gravitational waves, black holes, and cosmological space-times.

Download

Author

Alessandra Buonanno and Thibault Damour

Alessandra Buonanno is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Potsdam, Germany, and Head of the Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity Department. She holds a research professorship at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, and honorary professorships at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and the University of Potsdam.

Thibault Damour has been a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, Bures-sur-Yvette, France since 1989. A member of the Académie des Sciences, Institut de France, of the Academia Europaea and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is also a fellow of many European and US Learned Societies and was knighted Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur.

Balzan Prize - 2021