Gravitational Radiation

水，声波和电磁波是大多数物理系统中发生的波现象的例子。 广义相对论，爱因斯坦对牛顿引力理论的重新表述，预测加速的质量产生引力波，类似于电荷产生电磁波的方式。 引力波对双星轨道的影响已经被探测到，目前正在建造灵敏度足以观测来自遥远星系的引力波的天文台。 该项目的目标是开发将这些波的性质与其来源联系起来的方法，以便可以推断出发射过程的细节，例如黑洞碰撞。 它利用了一种新的和强大的计算方法，广义相对论的基础上，光线沿着的波旅行。

Water, sound and electromagnetic waves are examples of wave phenomena that occur in most physical systems. General relativity, Einstein's reformulation of Newton's gravitational theory, predicts that accelerated masses produce gravitational waves analogous to the way charges produce electromagnetic waves. Effects of gravitational waves on the orbits of binary pulsars have already been detected and observatories sensitive enough to observe the waves from distant galaxies are now under construction. The goal of this project is to develop methods for relating the properties of these waves to their sources so that the details of the emission process, such as a black hole collision, can be inferred. It utilizes a new and powerful computational approach to general relativity based upon the light rays along which the waves travel.