GRASP Routines: Gravitational Radiation from Binary Inspiral

0 One of the principal sources of gravitational radiation which should be detectable with the first or second generation of interferometric detectors is binary inspiral. This radiation is produced by a pair of massive and compact orbiting objects, such as neutron stars or black holes.

The simplest case is when the two objects are describing a circular orbit about their common center-of-mass, and neither object is spinning about its own axis. With these assumptions the system is then described, at any time, by the masses $m_1$ and $m_2$ of the objects, and their orbital frequency $\Omega$. (It is also necessary to describe the orientation of the orbital plane and the positions of the masses at a given time; these are details we will sort out later).

For convenience in dealing with dimensional quantities, we introduce the Solar Mass $M_\odot$ and the Solar Time $T_\odot$ defined by

$$M_\odot = 1.989 \times 10^{33} \> {\rm grams}$$ (6.0.31)

$$T_\odot = \left( {G \over c^3} \right) M_\odot = 4.925491 \times 10^{-6} \> {\rm sec}.$$ (6.0.32)

GRASP functions typically measure masses in units of $M_\odot$ and times in units of seconds.