Brief Summary of Each Supplement
Progress of Theoretical Physics Supplement No. 128
Perturbative and Numerical Approaches to Gravitational Waves
Edited by T. Nakamura
All metric theories of gravity predict the existence of gravitational
radiation. Although the existence of gravitational radiation is verified
indirectly by the radio astronomical observation of binary pulsar
PSR 1913+16, no direct observation of gravitational waves has yet been done.
In order to detect gravitational waves, several laser interferometer
observatories, including TAMA in Japan, are now being constructed, and
we expect that we could observe gravitational waves from, for example,
coalescing binary neutron stars at the beginning of next century.
The direct detection of gravitational waves enables us to have new means
to probe the universe. Its implications are immeasurable.
Predicting the detailed waveforms of gravitational waves is important to
analyze the forthcoming observational data. Recently, there has been great
progress in the theoretical study of gravitational radiation both by
perturbative approaches
(black hole perturbation and post-Newtonian perturbation) and by numerical
approaches (numerical relativity).
Both approaches are indispensable in pursuing the physics of gravitational
radiation.
The main purpose of this supplement is to review the perturbative and
numerical approaches to the theoretical study of gravitational radiation
in Japan and to contribute the progress in theoretical physics of
gravitational radiation.
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