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# Reionization Constraints on the Contribution of Primordial Compact Objects to Dark Matter

## 1 Introduction

Observations of the rotation curves of galaxies and clusters, in addition to joint fits of Type Ia supernova data and the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background, suggest that the density of matter in the current universe is $``$30% of the closure density, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.3`$. However, the success of big bang nucleosynthesis in explaining the primordial abundances of light elements, especially the primordial abundance ratio of D/H, requires that the contribution of baryons is only $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.019\pm 0.0024`$ (95% confidence; Tytler et al. 2000), where $`hH_0/100`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 and $`H_0`$ is the present day Hubble constant. The majority of the matter must be something else.

One class of possibilities involves hypothesized exotic particles, from light particles such as axions (Peccei & Quinn 1977) to heavier particles such as the neutralino (e.g., Jungman, Kamionkowski, & Greist 1996) or even ultramassive particles such as “WIMPZILLAs” (Kolb, Chung, & Riotto 1998; Hui & Stewart 1999). Another class, which we focus on in this paper, involves dark matter that occurs primarily in $`0.11M_{}`$ clumps. This class, which has received recent attention because this is the mass scale of objects discovered by microlensing projects such as MACHO, EROS, and OGLE, has several specific candidates. For example, black holes may have formed during the QCD phase transition from quark matter to nucleonic matter (Jedamzik 1997, 1998; Niemeyer & Jedamzik 1999), during which the horizon mass was plausibly in the $`0.11M_{}`$ range. Other suggestions involve quark stars (Banerjee et al. 2000), boson stars (Colpi, Shapiro, & Wasserman 1986; Mielke & Schunck 2000), and stars formed of mirror matter (Mohapatra & Teplitz 1999). Here we consider those members of this class that involve primordial compact objects, specifically those objects which (1) existed before the $`z1100`$ epoch of decoupling, and (2) have a mass to radius ratio of $`GM/Rc^2\mathrm{¿}\mathrm{}0.1`$. These include black holes, quark stars, and boson stars, but not mirror matter stars, as they are envisioned to form at comparatively late times and to be comparable to ordinary stars in their compactness (Mohapatra & Teplitz 1999).

Primordial compact objects will accrete from the ambient medium and will therefore generate substantial luminosity. This luminosity can ionize the surrounding medium. Unlike the energy spectra from ordinary stars, which drop off rapidly above the ground state ionization energy of hydrogen, the energy spectra from accreting compact objects are known observationally to be very hard, with substantial components above 1 keV and often extending above 100 keV. An important consequence of this is that whereas the Stromgren sphere of ionization around, say, an O or B star is extremely sharply defined, with an exponentially decreasing ionization fraction outside the critical radius, the ionization fraction produced by an accreting compact object dies off relatively slowly with radius, as $`r^{3/2}`$ (Silk 1971; Carr 1981). Therefore, accretion onto a primordial object can produce ionization over a large volume in the early universe. If the resulting optical depth to Thomson scattering is too large, it will conflict with the upper limit to this optical depth derived from the observed anisotropy of the microwave background (Griffiths, Barbosa, & Liddle 1999). Conversely, the upper limit on the optical depth can be used to constrain the properties of primordial compact objects, if these are proposed as the dominant component of dark matter.

Here we calculate the ionization produced by compact objects accreting in the early universe. We find that the ionization produced by secondary electrons, an effect not included in previous analyses of reionization by accretion, increases substantially the ionization fraction and hence the optical depth to Thomson scattering. In § 2 we show that the Thomson optical depth out to the $`z1100`$ redshift of decoupling is $`\tau 24[f_{\mathrm{CO}}ϵ_1(M/M_{})]^{1/2}(H_0/65)^1`$, where $`ϵ_1`$ is the accretion efficiency $`L/\dot{M}c^2`$ divided by 0.1 and $`f_{\mathrm{CO}}`$ is the fraction of matter in primordial compact objects. We compare this result to the current observational upper limit of $`\tau <0.4`$, and show that either low accretion efficiency or low mass is required if dark matter is mostly composed of primordial compact objects. In § 3 we consider low-efficiency accretion such as flows dominated by advection or wind outflow. We show that the constraints from ionization are especially tight on objects without horizons. In § 4 we place this result in the context of previous constraints on, for example, primordial black holes as the main component of dark matter. We also discuss future improvements to our result. In particular, we show that the expected accuracy of optical depth measurements with MAP and Planck could decrease the upper bound on $`f_{\mathrm{CO}}ϵ_1(M/M_{})`$ by a further factor of $``$100.

## 2 Calculation of Optical Depth

If the number density of baryons is $`n(z)z^3n_0`$ (where in this entire calculation we assume $`z1`$) and the ionization fraction is $`x(z)`$, then the optical depth to Thomson scattering between redshifts $`z`$ and $`z+dz`$ is

$$d\tau (z)=n(z)x(z)\sigma _Tds(z)$$
(1)
where $`\sigma _T=6.65\times 10^{25}`$ is the Thomson scattering cross section and

$$ds(z)=\frac{1}{H_0}\frac{cdz}{(1+z)E(z)}$$
(2)
is the distance traveled by a photon in this redshift interval. Here $`E(z)=\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_m(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_R(1+z)^2+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }\right]^{1/2}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are the current contributions to the mass energy of the universe from, respectively, matter, curvature, and the cosmological constant. At $`z1`$ the first term dominates, so that $`E(z)\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{1/2}z^{3/2}`$ and $`ds(z)cH_0^1\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{1/2}z^{5/2}dz`$. The differential optical depth is then

$$d\tau (z)n_0z^3x(z)\sigma _Tds(z)=n_0x(z)\sigma _T\frac{c}{H_0\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{1/2}}z^{1/2}dz$$
(3)
(see also Haiman & Knox 1999). This needs to be integrated out to the $`z1100`$ redshift of decoupling to determine the optical depth to scattering in the early universe. The main unknown in this expression is the ionization fraction $`x(z)`$. In the remainder of this section, therefore, we compute the ionization produced by radiation from accreting compact objects. In § 2.1 we compute the luminosity and spectrum of this radiation. We assume Bondi-Hoyle accretion and a spectrum corresponding to that observed from many neutron stars and black hole candidates. In § 2.2 we use the ionization balance equation to calculate the ionization produced by a single source. We include the effects of ionization by secondary electrons, which is a significant effect not included in the analysis of pregalactic black hole accretion by Carr (1981). In § 2.3 we show that the ionizing flux from sources spread throughout the universe increases significantly the ionization fraction. Finally, in § 2.4 we calculate the optical depth to Thomson scattering out to the $`z1100`$ redshift of decoupling, including the effects of Compton cooling by the microwave background.

### 2.1 Luminosity and Spectrum of Radiation

Let us now consider accreting objects of mass $`M`$. Suppose that these masses are moving with the Hubble flow, so that the main parameter governing the accretion rate is the speed of sound in the gas at infinity, $`a_{\mathrm{}}=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1kT/\mu m_p}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ is the polytropic index, $`m_p`$ is the mass of the proton, and $`\mu `$ is the mean molecular weight. For pure hydrogen ($`\mu =1/2`$), the mass accretion rate from a perfect gas with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=5/3`$ is then

$$\dot{M}=1.2\times 10^{10}\left(\frac{M}{M_{}}\right)^2\left(\frac{\rho _{\mathrm{}}}{10^{24}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3}\right)T_4^{3/2}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{s}^1,$$
(4)
where $`T_4T_{\mathrm{}}/10^4`$ K and $`T_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the temperature of the gas at infinity. For a primordial composition of 75% hydrogen and 25% helium by mass, this accretion rate is more than doubled because helium has half the velocity for a given temperature that hydrogen does, and hence accretes at eight times the rate for a given mass density. We therefore take the coefficient to be $`3\times 10^{10}`$. If accretion produces a luminosity with an efficiency $`0.1ϵ_1`$, so that $`L=10^{20}ϵ_1\dot{M}`$ erg s-1, then

$$L=3\times 10^{30}\left(\frac{M}{M_{}}\right)^2\left(\frac{\rho _{\mathrm{}}}{10^{24}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3}\right)T_4^{3/2}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1.$$
(5)
The best estimate of the baryon density in the current universe from big bang nucleosynthesis constraints (Tytler et al. 2000) is

$$\rho _{B0}=3.6\pm 0.4\times 10^{31}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3.$$
(6)
At a redshift $`z`$ this density is therefore $`(1+z)^3\rho _{B0}z^3\rho _{B0}`$. Hence, if the compact object accretes matter with the average baryonic density in the universe, the luminosity at redshift $`z`$ is

$$L10^{24}z^3\left(\frac{M}{M_{}}\right)^2T_4^{3/2}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1.$$
(7)
Pressure balance of a hot HII region with the cooler exterior universe may decrease the density of accreting matter and therefore decrease this luminosity (see below). In accreting black hole sources from stellar mass to AGN, and also in some accreting neutron stars, the spectrum often has a power-law tail with equal power in equal logarithmic intervals of the photon energy, up to some $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$: $`dL(E)/dEE^1\mathrm{exp}(E/E_{\mathrm{max}})`$. The results of our calculation are fairly insensitive to the assumed spectrum. Normalizing this spectrum so that the total luminosity above $`E_0=13.6`$ eV is $`L`$, the differential photon flux at energy $`E`$ a distance $`R`$ from the compact object is

$$F(E)=e^{\tau (E)}\frac{dL/dE}{4\pi R^2E}=e^{\tau (E)}\frac{L}{4\pi \mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0)E^2R^2}e^{E/E_{\mathrm{max}}}.$$
(8)
Here $`\tau (E)`$ is the optical depth at a distance $`R`$ from the source to photons of energy $`E`$. Note that Carr (1981) chose a spectrum of a bremsstrahlung form ($`dL/dEe^{E/E_{\mathrm{max}}}`$), and hence had a different energy dependence and normalization for the photon number flux.

### 2.2 Secondary Ionization and Ionization Balance

A given photon can effectively produce many ionizations, because the ionized electrons can collisionally ionize other atoms (see, e.g., Silk & Werner 1969; Silk 1971). The collisional cross section exceeds $`10^{17}`$ cm2 for electron energies between $``$15 eV and 1 keV (see Dalgarno, Yan, & Liu 1999 for a recent discussion of electron energy deposition). Dalgarno et al. (1999) calculate that the mean energy per ion pair decreases with increasing initial electron energy, reaching a limit of 36.1 eV per pair at energies $`>`$200 eV. Using their Figure 6, we adopt an approximate value of $`E/3E_0`$ hydrogen atoms ionized by a photon of initial energy $`E`$; this is a rough average over the energy range of interest, and we assume for simplicity that it is constant over that range.

The effective ionization rate produced by the photons generated by accretion is therefore (adapting the formula of Carr 1981)

$$\zeta _H_{E_0}^{\mathrm{}}\sigma _1\left(\frac{E}{E_0}\right)^3\left(\frac{E}{3E_0}\right)F(E)𝑑E,$$
(9)
where $`\sigma _12\times 10^{17}`$ cm2 is the abundance-weighted ionization cross section at $`E_0`$. The integrand in this formula is a constant factor

$$\frac{E_{\mathrm{max}}}{3E_0\mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0)}$$
(10)
times the integrand in the corresponding formula in Carr (1981). The difference arises because we assume a different form for the spectrum and account for the ionization produced by secondary electrons. The remainder of the analysis of the ionization region created by a single source follows the treatment of Carr (1981), with this factor included. This is a large factor, of order 25 for $`E_{\mathrm{max}}=10^8`$ erg, and it therefore makes a crucial difference to the overall ionization. If $`E_{\mathrm{max}}E_0`$, the ionization rate is approximately (Silk et al. 1972)

$$\zeta _H\left(\frac{E_{\mathrm{max}}}{3E_0\mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0)}\right)\frac{\sigma _1L}{12\pi E_{\mathrm{max}}R^2}\left[\frac{1\mathrm{exp}(\tau _0)}{\tau _0}\right],$$
(11)
where

$$\tau _0=_0^Rn_H(1x)\sigma _1𝑑R$$
(12)
and the first factor in parentheses indicates the correction factor to the expression of Carr (1981). Here $`x`$ is the ionized fraction at radius $`R`$.

The ionization balance equation is

$$\alpha n_H^2x^2=\zeta _Hn_H(1x),$$
(13)
where around $`T10^4`$ K, the recombination coefficient not including single-photon transitions to the ground state (which would release ionizing photons) is $`\alpha 2.6\times 10^{13}T_4^{0.75}`$ cm3 s-1 (Hummer 1994). Far from the accreting compact object, where $`x1`$ and $`\tau _01`$, the ionization fraction is

$$x=\left(\frac{E_{\mathrm{max}}}{3E_0\mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0)}\right)^{1/2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{8}}\left(\frac{R}{R_s}\right)^{3/2},$$
(14)
where

$$R_s=\left[\frac{2L}{3\pi \alpha n_H^2E_{\mathrm{max}}}\right]^{1/3}.$$
(15)
Again, the initial factor in the equation for $`x`$ is the correction factor, which therefore increases the ionization fraction far from the compact object by a factor of $``$5; note that the only remaining dependence on $`E_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is $`\left[\mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0)\right]^{1/2}`$, so this result is very insensitive to the high-energy cutoff of the spectrum.

### 2.3 Contribution of Multiple Sources

The total ionization rate $`\zeta _H`$ must be summed over the contributions of all sources. At large distances from a source, $`\tau _0R1`$, so that $`\zeta _HR^3`$. For multiple sources separated by an average distance $`R_{\mathrm{sep}}`$, the ionizing rate is larger than the single-source ionizing rate at a distance $`R_{\mathrm{sep}}`$ by a factor

$$\frac{\zeta _H}{\zeta _H(r=R_{\mathrm{sep}})}=_{R_{\mathrm{sep}}}^{R_{\mathrm{max}}}\left(\frac{r}{R_{\mathrm{sep}}}\right)^34\pi r^2n_{\mathrm{CO}}𝑑r.$$
(16)
Here $`n_{\mathrm{CO}}=10^{62}z^3(M/M_{})^1\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{CO}}`$ cm-3 is the number density of compact objects at redshift $`z`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{CO}}`$ is the fraction of the closure density in compact objects. Also, $`R_{\mathrm{max}}\mathrm{min}[10^{31}z^3x^1,c/H(z)]`$ cm is the mean free path to Thomson scattering. The separation distance is approximately given by $`\left(\frac{4}{3}\pi R_{\mathrm{sep}}^3\right)^1=n_{\mathrm{CO}}`$, so $`R_{\mathrm{sep}}^3\frac{3}{4\pi }n_{\mathrm{CO}}^1`$. Therefore,

$$\frac{\zeta _H}{\zeta _H(r=R_{\mathrm{sep}})}3\mathrm{ln}(R_{\mathrm{max}}/R_{\mathrm{sep}}).$$
(17)
The ratio of radii is typically $`10^610^8`$, so the enhancement due to the contributions of multiple sources is approximately a factor of 50.

When multiple sources are included, the ionization fraction (for $`x1`$) is increased by a factor that is approximately the square root of the factor by which the ionization rate is enhanced. At a distance $`R`$ the rate is enhanced by a factor

$$\zeta _H\zeta _H\left(1+50(R/R_{\mathrm{sep}})^3\right),$$
(18)
and hence the ionization fraction including multiple sources is

$$x\left(\frac{E_{\mathrm{max}}}{3E_0\mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0)}\right)^{1/2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{8}}\left(\frac{R}{R_s}\right)^{3/2}\left(1+50(R/R_{\mathrm{sep}})^3\right)^{1/2}.$$
(19)
Integrating this from $`R_s`$ to $`R_{\mathrm{sep}}`$, the volume-averaged ionization is

$$\overline{x}3\left(\frac{E_{\mathrm{max}}}{3E_0\mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0)}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{R_s}{R_{\mathrm{sep}}}\right)^{3/2}.$$
(20)
Here $`R_{\mathrm{sep}}=3\times 10^{20}z^1(M/M_{})^{1/3}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{CO}}^{1/3}`$ cm.

### 2.4 Optical Depth Including Compton Cooling and Pressure Balance

An evaluation of this expression for the ionization fraction requires knowledge of the luminosity of individual sources and the average temperature of the matter in the universe. As pointed out by, e.g., Carr (1981), the dominant cooling process at high redshifts is inverse Compton cooling off of the microwave background. If the temperature $`T`$ of the matter is much larger than the temperature $`T_r`$ of the radiation background, then the cooling rate per volume at redshift $`z`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_r2\times 10^{38}x(z)z^7T_4\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1.$$
(21)
The average heating rate is just the luminosity per source times the number density of sources:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_h=Ln_{\mathrm{CO}}=10^{38}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{CO}}z^6\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1.$$
(22)
At $`z1000`$, where the optical depth to Thomson scattering exceeds unity and as we will see $`x0.1`$, the cooling rate dominates the heating rate and hence the matter temperature is locked to the radiation temperature during this epoch (see also Carr 1981). This increases the recombination rate over most of the volume of interest, and therefore decreases the optical depth to scattering. Inside the HII region, by contrast, heating dominates cooling and the temperature remains close to $`10^4`$ K for $`z>10`$; in fact, Carr (1981) finds that the temperature is $`T_4=(z/10^3)^{0.3}`$. The temperature difference means that pressure balance requires that the density inside the HII region be less than the average density by a factor $`\overline{T}/T`$; note, however, that this configuration requires the support against gravity of a denser by a less dense medium, which therefore is in principle Rayleigh-Taylor unstable. Hence, mixing could occur which would decrease the temperature and increase the density of the HII region. If mixing does not occur, the density of the matter accreting onto the compact object is decreased by a factor $`0.27(z/10^3)^{0.7}`$. The ionization fraction and hence the optical depth would therefore be reduced by the square root of this factor, or about $`0.5(z/10^3)^{0.35}`$. The uncertainty of whether there is an interchange instability and mixing thus produces an uncertainty of a factor $``$2 in the optical depth to scattering.

With these contributions, the average ionization is

$$\overline{x}(z)510\times 10^4ϵ_1^{1/2}\left(\frac{M}{M_{}}\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{CO}}^{1/2}\left[\frac{6}{\mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0}\right]^{1/2}z^{0.7}.$$
(23)
The differential optical depth to scattering is $`d\tau (z)=n_0x(z)\sigma _T\frac{c}{H_0\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{1/2}}z^{1/2}dz`$, so using $`n_0=2.2\pm 0.3\times 10^7`$ cm-3 and evaluating the constants, this is

$$d\tau (z)12\times 10^6\left[\frac{6}{\mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0)}\right]^{1/2}ϵ_1^{1/2}(M/M_{})^{1/2}(H_0/65\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1)^1f_{\mathrm{CO}}^{1/2}z^{1.2}dz.$$
(24)
Here $`f_{\mathrm{CO}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{CO}}/\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ is the fraction of matter in compact objects. Integrating from a small redshift to the redshift $`z1100`$ at decoupling gives finally

$$\tau 24\left[\frac{6ϵ_1}{\mathrm{ln}(E_{\mathrm{max}}/E_0)}\left(\frac{M}{M_{}}\right)f_{\mathrm{CO}}\right]^{1/2}\left(\frac{H_0}{65}\right)^1.$$
(25)
The effect of this optical depth on the observed CMB power spectrum is not identical to the effect of the same optical depth if it came from sudden and complete reionization at some lower redshift $`z1040`$. The reason is that the mechanism described here produces most of the optical depth at comparatively high redshifts, $`z\mathrm{¿}\mathrm{}800`$, and hence for optical depths in excess of unity the scatterings occur close to recombination where some of the primordial anisotropy is maintained. In contrast, scattering at low redshift exponentially suppresses the primordial anisotropy. However, if the optical depth is less than unity this effect is less pronounced in the reionization mechanism discussed in this paper, because scatterings occur over a wide range of redshift and hence tend to smooth out small-scale anisotropies in the same way as would happen due to scattering at much lower redshifts. These qualitative effects are confirmed by simulations with CMBFAST (Seljak & Zaldarriaga 1996 and subsequent papers), which show that for $`\tau \mathrm{¡}\mathrm{}1`$ the constraints on the optical depth from the observed CMB power spectrum are roughly the same for this mechanism as for late reionization.

The observational upper limit to $`\tau `$ from small-scale CMB anisotropy is $`\tau \mathrm{¡}\mathrm{}0.4`$ if $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$ and the primordial power spectrum has an index $`n=1`$ (Griffiths et al. 1999). To be consistent with this limit, primordial compact objects must therefore be either low-efficiency accretors, low-mass objects, or a minor component of dark matter. Given that the measured mass spectrum of MACHOs in our galaxy has a peak in the $`0.5M_{}1M_{}`$ range (Alcock et al. 2000; note, however, that most of the mass in the halo need not be in MACHOs \[Gates et al. 1998, Alcock et al. 2000\] and a higher-mass component is not ruled out \[Lasserre et al. 2000\]), explanation of these objects with a population that composes most of the dark matter in the universe requires low-efficiency accretion, which we consider in the next section. These constraints are particularly strict for higher-mass black holes. The joint limits on $`M`$ and $`ϵ`$ are shown in Figure 1, for three different upper limits to the Thomson optical depth: $`\tau `$=0.4, 0.14, or 0.05, which are the optical depths obtained if the the universe was fully and suddenly reionized at a redshift of $`z_{\mathrm{reion}}`$=40, 20, or 10, respectively.

## 3 Efficiency of Accretion

In the last few years there has been much discussion of the possibility that, for low accretion rates, an advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF) is set up in which the radiative efficiency onto black holes is low because the matter flows almost radially into the hole, taking almost all of its energy with it (e.g., Narayan & Yi 1994; Abramowicz et al. 1995). The radiative efficiency according to these solutions could be extremely low, and hence might allow a large matter density in black holes. If the compact object does not have a horizon, then an ADAF will not reduce the radiative efficiency, so this is not a way out.

Another possibility is that most of the accreting matter does not reach the surface at all, perhaps because it is driven out in a wind. This is the basis of the advection-dominated inflow-outflow solution (ADIOS) proposed by Blandford & Begelman (1999). Convective flow, in which the net inward flow rate at small radii is small, has also been found analytically by Quataert & Narayan (1999) and in numerical simulations by Stone, Pringle, & Begelman (1999). If in Bondi-Hoyle accretion the result of the accretion is inflow of a small fraction of matter combined with outflow of most of the matter, then the accretion efficiency onto even objects without horizons could be small. However, there is a crucial unsolved problem with these flows, which is whether they will remain at low efficiency indefinitely if there is a steady inflow of matter from infinity, as in Bondi-Hoyle accretion. If instead the accretion proceeds as in a dwarf nova, in which there is a long-term buildup of matter followed by a short-term, high-luminosity episode during which the accumulated matter is dumped onto the central object, then current accretion theory suggests the accretion will generate radiation efficiently regardless of the nature of the compact object. In such a case, neither black holes nor any other type of primordial compact object are viable candidates for most of the dark matter in the universe.

## 4 Discussion and Conclusions

Consideration of compact objects as components of dark matter has often been restricted to black holes, but many of the arguments apply more generally. Black holes with masses in excess of $`10^3M_{}`$ are ruled out as a significant component of galactic halos because their dynamical interactions with globular clusters would destroy the clusters (for a recent calculation see Arras & Wasserman 1999). The lack of an increase in the number of low equivalent width quasars with increasing redshift (expected to be caused by gravitational lensing) rules out a contribution $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{¿}\mathrm{}0.1`$ from any objects with masses between $`10^2M_{}`$ and $`20M_{}`$ that are more compact than their Einstein radii (Dalcanton et al. 1994). The lack of observed lensing of cosmological gamma-ray bursts also allows weak limits to be placed on the contribution of black holes of various sizes: $`\mathrm{\Omega }<0.15`$ at the 90% level for $`M=10^{6.5}M_{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }<0.9`$ at the $`1\sigma `$ level for $`M=10^{12.5}10^9M_{}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }<0.1`$ ($`z_{\mathrm{GRB}}1`$) or $`\mathrm{\Omega }<0.2`$ ($`z_{\mathrm{GRB}}2`$) at the 95% level for $`M=10^{16}10^{13}M_{}`$ (Marani et al. 1999).

Here we show that ionization from compact object accretion in the early post-decoupling universe is more significant than had been thought previously, because of the effects of secondary ionization by electrons. The result is that, barring inefficient accretion ($`ϵ<0.05`$ for $`M=0.1M_{}`$, $`ϵ<0.005`$ for $`M=1M_{}`$), primordial compact objects in this mass range cannot compose a significant fraction of the mass of the universe, because they would ionize the universe enough to conflict with the measured small-scale anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background. If further analysis and numerical simulation of flows onto black holes demonstrates that the long-term time averaged accretion efficiency is $`\mathrm{¿}\mathrm{}0.1`$, as might happen if matter tends to pile up as in a dwarf nova and then accrete quickly with efficient radiation, then all masses greater than $`0.1M_{}`$ are excluded from making a significant contribution.

Future CMB missions such as MAP and Planck could strengthen these constraints considerably. The optical depth resolution of MAP is expected to be 0.022, and of Planck is expected to be 0.004 (Zaldarriaga, Spergel, & Seljak 1997; Bouchet, Prunet, & Sethi 1999; Eisenstein, Hu, & Tegmark 1999). Since the existence of a Ly$`\alpha `$ emitter at $`z=5.64`$ (see Haiman & Spaans 1999) shows that reionization must have occurred before then, this means that both satellites, and especially Planck, will be able to detect the effects of ionization regardless of the actual redshift of reionization. If $`z_{\mathrm{reion}}10`$ then the redshift of reionization could even be determined directly with SIRTF or NGST via, e.g., analysis of the damping wing of the Gunn-Peterson trough (Miralda-Escudé 1998) or detection of transmitted flux between Lyman resonances (Haiman & Loeb 1999). The upper limit on the product $`ϵ_1(M/M_{})f_{\mathrm{CO}}`$ scales like $`\tau _{\mathrm{scatt}}^2`$ (or, for $`z1`$, like $`z_{\mathrm{reion}}^3`$), so if $`z_{\mathrm{reion}}10`$ this upper limit is decreased by almost a factor of 100. In this case, barring extremely inefficient accretion, dark matter must be composed of less compact objects or of WIMPs.

We thank Sylvain Veilleux, Andy Young, Jim Stone, Eve Ostriker, and Scott Dodelson for comments. This work was supported in part by NASA ATP grant number NRA-98-03-ATP-028.


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# Gravitational RadiationTo be published in the Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol, and Macmillan Publishers Ltd, London, 2000).

## Gravitational wave astronomy

Gravity is one of the fundamental forces of Nature, and it is the dominant force in most astronomical systems. In common with all other phenomena, gravity must obey the principles of Special Relativity. In particular, gravitational forces must not be transmitted or communicated faster than light. This means that when the gravitational field of an object changes, the changes ripple outwards through space and take a finite time to reach other objects. These ripples are called gravitational radiation or gravitational waves.111They are also sometimes referred to as gravity waves, but since this term has a different meaning in meteorology and stellar hydrodynamics, we will avoid it here. See Solar Interior: Helioseismology.

In Einstein’s theory of gravitation (see General Relativity and Gravitation), as in many other modern theories of gravity (see Non-general Relativity Theories of Gravity), gravitational waves travel at exactly the speed of light. Different theories make different predictions, however, about details, such as their strength and polarization. There is strong indirect observational evidence (see Binary Stars as a Probe of General Relativity, Hulse-Taylor Pulsar) that gravitational waves follow the predictions of general relativity, and instruments now under construction are expected to make the first direct detections of them in the first years of the 21st century.

These instruments and plans for future instruments in space are described in the article Gravitational Radiation Detection on Earth and in Space. Detectors must look for gravitational radiation from astronomical systems, because it is not possible to generate detectable levels of radiation in the laboratory. It follows that gravitational wave detection is also a branch of observational astronomy.

The most striking aspect of gravitational waves is their weakness. A comparison with the energy in light will illustrate this. The human eye has no trouble sensing the light from the planet Jupiter: the amount of energy that passes through the iris of the eye is far more than the minimum the eye can detect. Yet several times a week a gravitational wave, generated in a far distant galaxy, carries a similar amount of energy into the eye, and we don’t notice it.

The reason is that gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces, and the disturbance created by even such an energetic wave is so tiny that no man-made instrument has so far registered it. While all the energy in the light from Jupiter that enters the eye is absorbed in the eye, the gravitational wave passes right through, leaving behind almost none of its energy. All the matter in the present Universe is similarly transparent to gravitational waves.

Gravitational radiation is today one of the last unopened windows into the Universe. There are at least five reasons motivating scientists to develop gravitational wave astronomy:

* The weakness with which gravitational waves interact with matter is a great advantage for astronomy. It means that gravitational waves arrive unaffected by any intervening matter they may have encountered since being generated. There is no significant scattering or absorption, although they will be deflected by a Gravitational Lens in the same way as light. Gravitational waves carry uncorrupted information even if they come from the most distant parts of the Universe or from its most hidden regions, like the interiors of Supernovae.
* Gravitational waves are emitted by the bulk motions of their sources, not by individual atoms or electrons, as is normally the case for electromagnetic waves. They therefore carry a completely different kind of information about their sources from that which is normally available in observations of Binary Stars, supernovae, and Neutron Stars.
* Gravitational waves can be emitted by black holes, which are described in the article General Relativity and Gravitation. Indeed, gravitational waves provide only way to make direct observations of these objects. Since there is now strong indirect evidence that giant black holes inhabit the centers of many (or even most) galaxies (see Supermassive black holes in AGN), and since smaller ones are common in the Galaxy (see Black Hole Candidates in X-Ray Binaries), there is great interest in making direct observations of them.
* Gravitational waves can come from extraordinarily early in the history of the Universe. The electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang is called the Cosmic Microwave Background. Observations of it describe the Universe at it was about $`10^5`$ years after the Big Bang. Studies of cosmological Nucleosynthesis give information about what the Universe was like as little as 3 minutes after the Big Bang. Gravitational waves, if they can be detected, would picture the Universe when it was only perhaps $`10^{24}`$ seconds old, just at the end of Inflation.
* Gravitational radiation is the last fundamental prediction of Einstein’s general relativity that has not yet been directly verified. If another theory of gravity is correct, then differences could in principle show up in the properties of gravitational waves, such as their polarization. In principle, there must be a better theory of gravity, since general relativity is not a quantum theory, a deficiency that theoretical physicists today are working hard to remedy. The majority belief today is that there should be a unified theory of the fundamental forces, in which gravitation is related to the other forces. Evidence for the nature of this relation could show up in observations of gravitational waves, particularly those from the Big Bang.

These motivations and their implications are developed in the following sections. Each section begins with an introduction to the physical ideas and then develops some of the mathematical details.

## The physics of gravitational radiation: weakness and strength

The starting point for understanding gravitational radiation is Newtonian gravity. The weakness of gravity is evident. If a child picks up a book, she defeats the cumulative gravitational pull of the entire planet Earth on the book. The strength to do this comes from the chemical forces in her muscles, which come from electromagnetic interactions.

In fact, the electromagnetic force between the electron and the proton in a hydrogen atom is $`2\times 10^{39}`$ times bigger than the gravitational force between them. The reason that gravity can nevertheless dominate on the cosmic scale is that opposite electrical charges cancel each other, while the gravitational forces of all the particles add.

Another fact about gravity that was known to Newton is what is now called the equivalence principle (see General Relativity and Gravitation). This is the principle that all bodies accelerate in the same way in a gravitational field, so that the trajectory that a freely falling body (a body influenced only by gravity) follows in a given gravitational field depends only on its starting position and velocity, not on what it is made of.

Imagine now a machine made in some way to detect gravitational waves. Whatever the method of detection, a wave needs somehow to alter the internal state of the detector. If the wave carries a gravitational field that is completely uniform across the detector, then by the equivalence principle all of the parts of the detector will accelerate together, and its state will not change at all. To detect a gravitational wave, the machine must measure the non-uniformities of the gravitational field across a detector.

These non-uniformities are called tidal forces, because they produce the stretching effects that raise tides on the Earth. Gravitational waves are traveling tidal forces.

Newton’s theory of gravity had no gravitational waves. For Newton, if a gravitational field changed in some way, that change took place instantaneously everywhere in space. This is not a wave. Let us consider what we mean by the term “wave” in ordinary language.

Imagine a child’s rubber duck floating in a bath tub half full of water. If a child presses down on the duck very gently, until is is nearly submerged, then the level of the water will rise everywhere in a nearly uniform way, and this is not called a wave. If instead he drops the duck, then the disturbance rises around the base of the duck rapidly, moves away from it, and eventually reaches the walls. This is a wave. Wave motion requires a finite speed for the propagation of disturbances. If the disturbance is very slow, as for the floating duck, then the wavelength is very long, and near the site of the disturbance the wave motion is not noticeable. We say we are in the “near zone”. But when we are more than a wavelength away, then we see waves, and this is the “wave zone” or “far zone”. For the dropped duck, we see that waves because their wavelengths are shorter than the size of the bath. In general relativity, the speed of gravity is the speed of light. Because of this finite speed, gravity must exhibit wave effects.

Many of Newton’s contemporaries were unhappy that his theory of gravity was based on instantaneous “action at a distance”, but Newton’s theory fit the observational facts. If gravity had a finite speed of propagation, there was no evidence for it in the solar system. Interestingly, the brilliant 18th century French mathematician and physicist Laplace tried out a variation on Newton’s theory in which gravity was represented by something “flowing” out of its source with a finite speed. He reasoned that a planet like the Earth, moving through this fluid of gravity, would experience friction and gradually spiral in towards the Sun.

Laplace could show that the observational limits on this inspiral even in his day were so stringent that the speed of gravity in his model needed to be huge compared to the speed of light. He did not find this result attractive and took the theory no further. (Laplace also explored the notion of what we now call a black hole, which for him was a region where gravity was strong enough to trap light.)

It is interesting that today, observations of the two neutron stars in the binary system PSR1913+16 spiraling together as they orbit one another provides the most convincing evidence that gravitational waves exist and are as described in general relativity. (See below and the article Binary Stars as a Probe of General Relativity.) Laplace had the right effect, but the wrong theory. This evidence is described in the next section.

In general relativity, Einstein used the principle of equivalence as the basis for a geometrical description of gravity. In the four-dimensional world of space-time, the trajectory of a particle falling freely in a gravitational field is a certain fixed curve. Its direction at any point depends on the velocity of the particle. The equivalence principle implies that there is a preferred set of curves in space-time: at any point, pick any direction, and there is a unique curve in that direction that will be the trajectory of any particle starting with that velocity. These trajectories are thus properties of space-time itself.

Moreover, if there were no gravitational field, the trajectories would be simple straight lines. Even in a gravitational field, a small freely falling particle does not “feel” any acceleration: its internal state is the same as if there were no gravity. Therefore Einstein postulated that a gravitational field made space-time curved, and that the preferred trajectories were locally straight lines that simply changed direction as they moved through the curved space-time, in much the same way as a great circle on a sphere changes direction relative to other great circles as one goes along it. For weak gravitational fields of slowly moving bodies, Einstein’s theory reduces to Newton’s in the first approximation.

For gravitational waves, one could make a very simple detector just by monitoring the distance between two nearby freely falling particles. If they are genuinely free, then any changes in their separations would indicate the passage of a gravitational wave. Because this measures a tidal effect, the bigger the separation of the particles, the bigger will be the change in their separation, at least for particles that are separated by less than a gravitational wavelength. Most modern gravitational wave detectors are designed to be as big as cost and practicality allows. These are described in the article Gravitational Radiation Detection on Earth and in Space.

Although gravitational radiation is well understood in theoretical terms in general relativity, the complexity and non-linearity of Einstein’s equations means that calculations are often difficult. In the historical development of general relativity, between 1915 and the 1950’s and 1960’s, these mathematical difficulties created confusion over the physical nature of gravitational radiation, and in particular over whether they carried energy away from the source. Improved mathematical techniques finally resolved the matter in favor of the simple physical picture presented here, but this picture would not be complete without the strong mathematical underpinning that now exists.

The question of energy in gravitational waves is still a delicate one. There is no question that waves carry energy (and momentum) away from their sources. Nevertheless, it is not possible in general relativity to localize the energy in the radiation to regions smaller than about a wavelength. Indeed the equivalence principle shows that “point” particles feel nothing, no matter how strong the wave. The wave only acts by stretching space-time, producing a tidal distortion in the separations between particles (see the discussion of polarization below).

For this reason, energy is localized only in regions, not at points. It is nevertheless real energy: the nonlinearity of general relativity allows waves to create gravitation themselves. Recent numerical simulations have shown that focussed gravitational waves can actually form black holes, trapping themselves. If the waves are weak, they enter the focussing region and re-emerge. If they are strong enough, they enter and never leave.

### Gravitational waves in a quasi-Newtonian model

It is possible to calculate the approximate size of the effect of a given gravitational wave by beginning with Newtonian gravity and adding waves to it. In Newtonian gravity the gravitational field produced by a mass $`M`$ at a distance $`r`$ is given by

$$\varphi =GM/r,$$
(1)
where $`G`$ is Newton’s gravitational constant. The field of a gravitational wave must be a ripple on this, which means a small change that oscillates in space and time. A suitable form for a change that propagates at the speed of light in the $`z`$-direction with an angular frequency $`\omega `$ is:

$$\delta \varphi =ϵ\frac{GM}{r}\mathrm{sin}[\omega (z/ct)],$$
(2)
where $`ϵ`$ is a dimensionless number that would be expected to be small compared to 1. Its size is the subject of the next main section.

The field $`\delta \varphi `$ produces an acceleration in the $`z`$-direction that depends on its $`z`$-derivative. Both $`1/r`$ and the $`\mathrm{sin}()`$ term depend on z. The derivative of $`1/r`$ will be proportional to $`1/r^2`$, which is how the acceleration falls off in Newton’s theory (where $`\varphi `$ is the only field). But the derivative of the $`\mathrm{sin}()`$ term does not change the $`1/r`$; rather, it essentially just multiplies $`\delta \varphi `$ by $`\omega /c`$. At sufficiently large distances from the source, this term will dominate the $`1/r^2`$ term and the acceleration produced by the wave will be:

$$\delta a_z=ϵ\omega \frac{GM}{rc}\mathrm{cos}[\omega (z/ct)].$$
(3)
Note that this term would not be present in the $`x`$\- and $`y`$-derivatives, so these components of the acceleration are much smaller in this quasi-Newtonian model of a gravitational wave.

### Effect on a simple detector

The tidal part of this acceleration, for a detector that has size $`\mathrm{}`$ in the $`z`$-direction, is to a first approximation

$$\mathrm{}\frac{d}{dz}\delta a_z=ϵ\omega ^2\mathrm{}\frac{GM}{rc^2}\mathrm{sin}[\omega (z/ct)].$$
(4)
If a detector consists of two freely falling particles with this relative acceleration, the equation of motion for their separation $`\mathrm{}`$ will be

$$\frac{d^2\mathrm{}}{dt^2}=ϵ\omega ^2\mathrm{}\frac{GM}{rc^2}\mathrm{sin}[\omega (z/ct)],$$
(5)
The dimensionless coefficient $`ϵ(GM/rc^2)`$ is typically very small. Even if $`ϵ`$ is of order 1, the other number is, with reasonable values for $`M`$ and $`R`$,

$$\frac{GM}{rc^2}=2.4\times 10^{21}\left(\frac{M}{M_{}}\right)\left(\frac{r}{20\mathrm{Mpc}}\right)^1.$$

The mass and distance scales here are those appropriate to a neutron star in the nearest large cluster of galaxies, the Virgo Cluster. (The distance unit is based on the astronomers’ parsec, denoted pc, which is about $`3\times 10^{16}`$ m. The unit Mpc is a megaparsec.) It is believed that several neutron stars are formed in the Virgo Cluster each year in supernova explosions. Ever since the beginning of the development of gravitational wave detectors such events have been high on the list of possible sources of gravitational waves.

To solve Equation (5), one takes $`r`$ and $`z`$ as constants, and uses the smallness of the right-hand-side, which implies that the changes in $`\mathrm{}`$ are tiny compared to $`\mathrm{}`$ itself. On the right-hand side one can therefore replace $`\mathrm{}`$ by $`\mathrm{}_0`$, the initial value of $`\mathrm{}`$, and then simply integrate twice in time to get (for an initial value $`d\mathrm{}/dt=0`$)

$$\frac{\mathrm{}(t)\mathrm{}_0}{\mathrm{}_0}=ϵ\frac{GM}{rc^2}\mathrm{sin}[\omega (z/ct)].$$
(6)
The right-hand-side of Equation (6) is identical to that of Equation (2). This is an important conclusion which fits neatly with Einstein’s geometrical conception of gravity: the size of a gravitational wave gives directly the stretching of the distance between nearby free particles. It is conventional to call this $`h/2`$ and refer to $`h`$ as the gravitational wave potential

$$h:=2\frac{\mathrm{}(t)\mathrm{}_0}{\mathrm{}_0}=2\delta \varphi .$$
(7)
The amplitude of the oscillations of $`h`$ is

$$h2ϵ\frac{GM}{rc^2}.$$
(8)
It is evident from this that a detector must be able to measure changes in its own size that are smaller than one part in $`10^{21}`$ to have a reasonable chance of making astronomical observations. The extraordinary smallness of this effect also explains why ordinary objects in the Universe are transparent to gravitational waves. As the waves pass through them, they disturb them so little (parts per $`10^{21}`$ typically) that the transfer of energy to the object and any back-reaction effects of this on the wave are negligibly small.

### Energy flux carried by waves

The energy in the waves can also be estimated from these equations and general physical principles. Quite generally, in classical field theories, the energy flux of a propagating sinusoidal plane wave is proportional to the square of the time-derivative of the fundamental field. In electromagnetism, the Poynting flux is proportional to the square of the time-derivative of the vector potential.

In general relativity, the flux is therefore proportional to the square of the time-derivative of $`h(t)`$. The proportionality constant must be built only out of $`c`$, $`G`$, and pure numbers. To get the right units, it must be proportional to $`c^3/G`$; to get the pure number, a calculation in general relativity is required: $`1/32\pi `$ for a linearly polarized wave. (Polarization is described later.) This gives

$`F_{gw}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{c^3}{G}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{dh}{dt}}\right)^2`$
$`=`$ $`1.6\times 10^5\left({\displaystyle \frac{f}{100\mathrm{Hz}}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{h}{10^{22}}}\right)^2\mathrm{W}\mathrm{m}^2,`$
for a wave with frequency $`f=\omega /2\pi `$. For comparison, reflected sunlight from Jupiter has a flux on Earth of $`2.3\times 10^7\mathrm{W}\mathrm{m}^2`$, almost 100 times smaller than that of a gravitational wave with an amplitude of $`10^{22}`$!

### Deficiencies of the quasi-Newtonian model

The calculation and equations in this section have been framed within a modified Newtonian model of gravity with a propagation speed of $`c`$, and one would expect some differences from general relativity. The most important difference is in the direction in which the tidal forces act. In the simple model, wave accelerations act in the $`z`$-direction, which was the direction of propagation of the wave. This is called a longitudinal wave.

In general relativity, gravitational waves are transverse waves: if the wave propagates in the $`z`$-direction then the tidal forces act only in the $`xy`$-plane. We will discuss later the exact form that their action in this plane takes. Remarkably, the rest of the formulas above are good approximations even in general relativity, provided $`ϵ`$ is calculated correctly, as described in the next section.

## The emission of gravitational waves

The previous section described the propagation of gravitational waves, their interaction with detectors, and the energy they carry. This section deals with the strength with which waves are emitted by astronomical bodies.

In Newtonian gravity there is a fundamental theorem, proved by Newton, that the gravitational field outside a spherical body is not only spherical, but it is the same as that of a point mass located at the origin of the body. It has the form given in Equation (1). In particular, the field is independent of the size of the body, as long as we consider only points outside it. This is true even if the star pulsates in a spherical manner.

This theorem is essentially the same in general relativity, and is known as Birkhoff’s Theorem. Outside a spherical body the field is the same as that of a black hole of the same mass as the body (the Schwarzschild metric), even if the body is pulsating spherically. But if the pulsation is nonspherical, then the outside field will change. In general relativity the changes generally propagate as a wave. So gravitational waves will be emitted by nonspherical motions.

In general the calculation of the emitted waves is extremely difficult, since the field equations of general relativity are a system of many coupled, nonlinear, partial differential equations. But in four circumstances the emission mechanisms are understood in some detail:

* Small-amplitude pulsations of relativistic stars and black holes. Normally gravitational radiation carries away energy and damps pulsations away, but in rotating stars the opposite may happen: the radiated loss of angular momentum may allow the star to spin down to an energetically more favored state, in which case the perturbation will grow, at least until nonlinear effects intervene. Discovered by S. Chandrasekhar and now called the Chandrasekhar-Friedman-Schutz (CFS) instability, it is thought to limit the rotation speed of young neutron stars (see below). Black holes also emit gravitational radiation when they are disturbed, e.g. by something falling into them, but they are not unstable: they always settle down into a steady state again.
* Radiation from “test” objects orbiting black holes. If the mass of the object is small enough then the total gravitational field may be treated as a linear perturbation of the exactly known field of a black hole (the Schwarzschild or, with rotation, the Kerr solution). These studies give insight into the general problem of gravitational radiation, and they also predict gravitational waveforms that might be observed by space-based observatories looking at compact stars falling into the giant black holes in the centers of galaxies. (See below and the article Gravitational Radiation Detection on Earth and in Space.)
* Weak gravitational fields and slow motion. Such weakly relativistic sources are studied in the post-Newtonian approximation, which includes higher-order corrections to Newtonian gravity from general relativity. This is analogous to the slow-motion multipole approximation that is so powerful in the study of electromagnetic radiation. Most realistic gravitational-wave sources can be studied to some approximation this way.
* Collisions of black holes and neutron stars. These events, which are expected to be observed by gravitational wave detectors (see below), must be modeled by solving the full set of Einstein equations on a powerful computer. Techniques to do this are advancing rapidly, and simulations of realistic mergers of stars and black holes from in-spiraling orbits can be expected to yield useful results in the first years of the 21st century.

### Quadrupole approximation

The post-Newtonian approximation has so far been the most powerful of these methods, and it yields the most insight into the emission mechanisms. Its fundamental result is the quadrupole formula, which gives the first approximation to the radiation emitted by a weakly relativistic system.

The quadrupole formula is analogous to the dipole formula of electromagnetism. In this language, monopole means spherical, which emits no radiation. This is also true in electromagnetism, where it is linked to conservation of charge. The “monopole moment” in electromagnetism is the total charge of a system, and since that does not change, there can be no spherical radiation.

Again in electromagnetism, the dipole moment is defined as the integral

$$d_i=\rho x_id^3x,$$

where $`\rho `$ is the charge density and $`x_i`$ is a Cartesian coordinate. If this integral is time-dependent, then the amplitude of the electromagnetic waves will be proportional to its first time-derivative $`dd_i/dt`$, and the radiated energy will be proportional (as we remarked earlier) to the square of the time derivative of this amplitude, i.e.  to $`_i|d^2d_i/dt^2|^2`$.

In the post-Newtonian approximation to general relativity, the calculation goes remarkably similarly. The monopole moment is now the total mass-energy, which is the dominant source of the gravitational field for non-relativistic bodies, and which is constant as long as the radiation is weak. (Radiation will carry away energy, but in the post-Newtonian approximation that is a higher-order effect.) The dipole moment is given by the same equation as above, but with $`\rho `$ interpreted as the density of mass-energy.

However, here general relativity departs from electromagnetism. The time-derivative of the dipole moment is, since the mass-energy is conserved, just the integral of the velocity $`v_i`$:

$$\dot{d}_i=\rho v_id^3x.$$
(10)
But this is the total momentum in the system, and (to lowest order) this is constant. Therefore, there is no energy radiated due to dipole effects in general relativity. The gravitational field far from the source does contain a dipole piece if $`\dot{d}_i`$ is non-zero, but this is constant because it reflects the fact that the source has non-zero total momentum and is therefore moving through space.

To find genuine radiation in general relativity one must go one step beyond the dipole approximation to the quadrupole terms. These are also studied in electromagnetism, and the analogy with relativity again is close. The fundamental quantity is the spatial tensor (matrix) $`Q_{jk}`$, the second moment of the mass (or charge) distribution:

$$Q_{jk}=\rho x_jx_kd^3x.$$
(11)
A gravitational wave in general relativity is represented by a matrix $`h_{jk}`$ rather than a single scalar $`h`$, and its source (in the quadrupole approximation) is $`Q_{jk}`$.

As in electromagnetism, the amplitude of the radiation is proportional to the second time-derivative of $`Q_{jk}`$, and it falls off inversely with the distance $`r`$ from the source. A factor of $`G/c^4`$ is needed in order to get a dimensionless amplitude $`h`$, and a factor of 2 to be consistent with the definition in Equation (8). The result for $`h_{jk}`$ is:

$$h_{jk}=\frac{2G}{rc^4}\frac{d^2Q_{jk}}{dt^2}.$$
(12)
General relativity describes waves with a matrix because gravity is geometry, and the effects of gravity are represented by the stretching of space-time. This matrix contains that distortion information. Here is the information about the transverse action of the waves that the quasi-Newtonian model of the last section did not get right.

### Simple estimates

If the motion inside the source is highly non-spherical, then a typical component of $`d^2Q_{jk}/dt^2`$ will (from Equation (11)) have magnitude $`Mv_{N.S.}^2`$, where $`v_{N.S.}^2`$ is the non-spherical part of the squared velocity inside the source. So one way of approximating any component of Equation (12) is

$$h\frac{2GMv_{N.S.}^2}{rc^4}.$$
(13)
Comparing this with Equation (8) we see that the ratio $`ϵ`$ of the wave to the Newtonian potential is simply

$$ϵ\frac{v_{N.S.}^2}{c^2}.$$

By the virial theorem for self-gravitating bodies, this will not be larger than

$$ϵ<\varphi _{int}/c^2,$$
(14)
where $`\varphi _{int}`$ is the maximum value of the Newtonian gravitational potential inside the system. This provides a convenient bound in practice. It should not be taken to be more accurate than that.

For a neutron star source one has $`\varphi _{int}0.2c^2`$. If the star is in the Virgo cluster, then the upper limit on the amplitude of the radiation from such a source is $`5\times 10^{22}`$. This has been the goal of detector development for decades, to make detectors that can observe waves at or below an amplitude of $`10^{21}`$.

### Polarization of gravitational waves

The matrix nature of the wave amplitude comes from general relativity and has no Newtonian analog. In order to find the effect of the waves on the separation of two free particles (the idealized detector), one has to start with $`h_{jk}`$ as given by Equation (12) or by any other calculation, and then do three things:

1. Project the matrix $`h_{jk}`$ onto a plane perpendicular to the direction of travel of the wave. In the simple case considered above, where the wave was traveling in the $`z`$-direction, this means leaving the components $`\{h_{xx},h_{xy},h_{yy}\}`$ alone and setting the remaining components to zero. It is then a two-dimensional matrix in the transverse plane.
2. Remove the two-dimensional trace of the projected matrix. Call the resulting matrix $`h_{jk}^{TT}`$, where TT stands for Transverse-Traceless. In the example this means subtracting $`(h_{xx}+h_{yy})/2`$ from both $`h_{xx}`$ and $`h_{yy}`$. Then there are only two independent components left, $`h_{xy}^{TT}=h_{yx}^{TT}`$ and $`h_{xx}^{TT}=h_{yy}^{TT}`$.
3. To find the change in the separation of two particles that have an initial separation given by the vector $`\mathrm{}_k`$, let the matrix $`h_{jk}^{TT}`$ act on it:

$$\delta \mathrm{}_j=\underset{k}{}h_{jk}^{TT}\mathrm{}_k.$$
(15)

It is clear that any longitudinal component of the separation $`\mathrm{}_j`$ between the particles is unaffected by the wave (in the example, this is the $`z`$-separation), and that there are two degrees of freedom (the two independent components of $`h_{jk}^{TT}`$) to move particles in the plane perpendicular to the propagation direction. These two degrees of freedom are the two polarizations of the wave.

Fig. 1 shows the conventional definition of the two independent polarizations, from which any other can be made by superposition. What is shown is the effect of a wave on a ring of free particles in a plane transverse to the wave. The first line shows a wave with $`h_{xy}=0`$, conventionally called the “+” polarization. The bottom line shows a wave with $`h_{xx}=0`$, the “$`\times `$” polarization.

### Luminosity in gravitational waves

The energy carried by the gravitational wave must be proportional to the square of the time-derivative of the wave amplitude, so it will depend on the sum of the squares of the components $`d^3Q_{jk}/dt^3`$. The energy flux falls off as $`1/r^2`$, but when integrated over a sphere of radius $`r`$ to get the total luminosity, the dependence on $`r`$ goes away, as it should. The luminosity contains a factor $`G/c^5`$ on dimensional grounds, and a further factor of $`1/5`$ comes from a careful calculation in general relativity. The result is the gravitational wave luminosity in the quadrupole approximation:

$$L_{gw}=\frac{G}{5c^5}(\underset{j,k}{}\stackrel{\mathrm{}}{\text{Q}}_{jk}\stackrel{\mathrm{}}{\text{Q}}_{jk}\frac{1}{3}\stackrel{\mathrm{}}{\text{Q}}^2),$$
(16)
where $`Q`$ is the trace of the matrix $`Q_{jk}`$. Its squared third derivative must be subtracted in order to ensure that spherical motions do not radiate.

This equation will be used in the next section to estimate the back-reaction effect on a system that emits gravitational radiation.

## Emission estimates

Until observations of gravitational waves are successfully made, one can only make intelligent guesses about most of the sources that will be seen. There are many that could be strong enough to be seen by the early detectors: binary stars, supernova explosions, neutron stars, the early Universe. The estimates in this section are accurate only to within factors of order 1. The estimates correctly show how the important observables scale with the properties of the systems.

### Man-made gravitational waves

One source can be ruled out: man-made gravitational radiation. Imagine creating a wave generator with the following extreme properties. It consists of two masses of $`10^3`$ kg each (a small car) at opposite ends of a beam 10 m long. At its center the beam pivots about an axis. This centrifuge rotates 10 times per second. All the velocity is non-spherical, so $`v_{N.S.}^2`$ in Equation (13) is about $`10^5\mathrm{m}^2\mathrm{s}^2`$. The frequency of the waves will actually be 20 Hz, since the mass distribution of the system is periodic with a period of 0.05 s, only half the rotation period. The wavelength of the waves will therefore be $`1.5\times 10^7`$ M, about the diameter of the earth. In order to detect gravitational waves, not near-zone Newtonian gravity, the detector must be at least one wavelength from the source. Then the amplitude $`h`$ can be deduced from Equation (13): $`h5\times 10^{43}`$. This is far too small to contemplate detecting!

### Radiation from a spinning neutron star

Some likely gravitational wave sources behave like the centrifuge, only on a grander scale. Suppose a neutron star of radius $`R`$ spins with a frequency $`f`$ and has an irregularity, a bump of mass $`m`$ on its otherwise axially symmetric shape. Then the bump will emit gravitational radiation (again at frequency $`2f`$ because it spins about its center of mass, so it actually has mass excesses on two sides of the star), and the non-spherical velocity will be just $`v_{N.S.}=2\pi Rf`$. The radiation amplitude will be, from Equation (13),

$$h_{bump}2(2\pi Rf/c)^2Gm/rc^2,$$
(17)
and the luminosity, from Equation (16) (assuming roughly 4 comparable components of $`Q_{jk}`$ contribute to the sum),

$$L_{bump}(G/5c^5)(2\pi f)^6m^2R^4.$$

The radiated energy would presumably come from the rotational energy of the star. This would lead to a spindown of the star on a timescale

$$t_{spindown}=\frac{1}{2}mv^2/L_{bump}\frac{5}{4\pi }f^1\left(\frac{Gm}{Rc^2}\right)^1\left(\frac{v}{c}\right)^3.$$

It is felt that neutron star crusts are not strong enough to support asymmetries with a mass of more than about $`m10^5M_{}`$, and from this one can estimate the likelihood that the observed spindown timescales of Pulsars are due to gravitational radiation. In most cases, it seems that gravitational wave losses cannot be the main spindown mechanism.

But lower levels of radiation would still be observable by detectors under construction, and this may be coming from a number of stars. In particular, there is a class of neutron stars in X-Ray Binary Stars. They are accreting, and it is possible that accretion will create some kind of mass asymmetry or else lead to a rotational instability of the CFS type in the r-modes (see below). In either case, the stars could turn out be long-lived sources of gravitational waves.

### Radiation from a binary star system

Another “centrifuge” is a binary star system. Two stars of the same mass $`M`$ in a circular orbit of radius $`R`$ have $`v_{N.S.}^2=GM/4R`$. The gravitational-wave amplitude from Equation (13) can then be written

$$h_{binary}\frac{1}{2}\frac{GM}{rc^2}\frac{GM}{Rc^2}.$$
(18)
Compare this to the implications of putting Equation (14) into Equation (8).

The gravitational-wave luminosity of such a system is, by a calculation analogous to that for bumps on neutron stars,

$$L_{binary}\frac{1}{80}\frac{c^5}{G}\left(\frac{GM}{Rc^2}\right)^5.$$

In this equation there appears the important constant $`c^5/G=3.6\times 10^{52}`$ W, a number with the dimensions of luminosity built only from fundamental constants. By comparison, the luminosity of the Sun is only $`3.8\times 10^{26}`$ W. Close binaries can therefore radiate more energy in gravitational waves than in light.

The radiation of energy by the orbital motion causes the orbit to shrink. The shrinking will make any observed gravitational waves increase in frequency with time. This is called a chirp. The timescale for this is

$$t_{chirp}=Mv^2/L_{binary}\frac{20GM}{c^3}\left(\frac{GM}{Rc^2}\right)^4.$$
(19)
### The binary pulsar system – verifying gravitational waves

This orbital shrinking has already been observed in the Hulse-Taylor Pulsar system, containing the radio pulsar PSR1913+16 and an unseen neutron star in a binary orbit. Discovered in 1974 by R Hulse and J Taylor, it has established that gravitational radiation is correctly described by general relativity. For their discovery, Hulse and Taylor received the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics.

The key to the importance of this binary system is that all of the important parameters of the system can be measured before one takes account of the orbital shrinking. This is because a number of post-Newtonian effects on the arrival time of pulses at the Earth, such as the precession of the position of the periastron and the time-dependent gravitational redshift of the pulsar period as it approaches and recedes from its companion, are measured in this system. They fully determine the masses and separation of the stars and the inclination and eccentricity of their orbit. From these numbers, without any free parameters, it is possible to compute the shrinking timescale predicted by general relativity. The observed rate matches the predicted rate to within the observational errors of less than 1%.

The stars are in an eccentric orbit ($`e=0.615`$) and both have masses of $`1.4M_{}`$. The orbital semimajor axis is about $`7\times 10^8`$ m. Equation (19) assumes a circular orbit and gives a shrinking timescale of $`6\times 10^{10}`$ y. This is an overestimate, however, partly because it is in any case a rough approximation, and partly because the timescale is very sensitive to eccentricity. With the observed eccentricity, a careful calculation shows that the expected shrinking timescale is around $`4\times 10^8`$ y, consistent with observations.

### Chirping binaries

For a circular equal-mass binary, the orbital shrinking timescale and the frequency of the orbit determine both $`M`$ and $`R`$. If in addition a gravitational wave detector measures the wave amplitude $`h_{binary}`$, then the distance $`r`$ to the binary system can be determined.

Remarkably, this conclusion holds even for binaries with unequal masses. In such a case, the measurable mass is the chirp mass of the binary, defined as $`:=\mu ^{3/5}M_T^{2/5}`$, where $`\mu `$ is the reduced mass of the binary system and $`M_T`$ its total mass. Then the distance $`r`$ is still measurable from the chirp rate, frequency, and amplitude. In other words, a chirping binary is a standard candle in astronomy. Post-Newtonian corrections to the orbit, if observed in the waveform, can determine the individual masses of the stars and even their spins.

## Recognizing weak signals

For ground-based detectors, all expected signals have amplitudes that are close to or even below the instrumental noise level in the detector output. Such signals can nevertheless be detected with confidence if their waveform matches an expected waveform. The pattern recognition technique that will be used by detector scientists is called matched filtering.

Matched filtering works by multiplying the output of the detector by a function of time (called the template) that represents an expected waveform, and summing (integrating) the result. If there is a signal matching the waveform buried in the noise then the output of the filter will be higher than expected for pure noise.

A simple example of such a filter is the Fourier transform, which is a matched filter for a constant-frequency signal. The noise power in the data stream is spread out over the spectrum, while the power in the signal is concentrated in a single frequency. This makes the signal easier to recognize. The improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio for the amplitude of the signal is proportional to the square-root of the number of cycles of the wave contained in the data. This is well-known for the Fourier transform, and it is generally true for matched filtering.

Matched filtering can make big demands on computation, for several reasons. First, the arrival time of a short-duration signal is generally not known, so the template has to be multiplied into the data stream at each distinguishable arrival time. This is then a correlation of the template with the data stream. Normally this is done efficiently using Fast Fourier Transform methods.

Second, the expected signal usually depends on a number of unknown parameters. For example, the radiation from a binary system depends on the chirp mass $``$, and it might arrive with an arbitrary phase. Therefore, many related templates must be separately applied to the data to cover the whole family of signals.

Third, matched filtering enhances the signal only if the template stays in phase with the signal for the whole data set. If they go out of phase, the method begins to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio. For long-duration signals, such as for low-mass neutron-star coalescing binaries or continuous-wave signals from neutron stars (see below), this requires the analysis of large data sets, and often forces the introduction of additional parameters to allow for small effects that can make the signal drift out of phase with the template. It also means that the method works well only if there is a good prediction of the form of the signal.

Because the first signals will be weak, matched filtering will be used wherever possible. As a simple rule of thumb, the detectability of a signal depends on its effective amplitude $`h_{\text{eff}}`$, defined as

$$h_{\text{eff}}=h\sqrt{N_{cycles}},$$
(20)
where $`N_{cycles}`$ is the number of cycles in the waveform that are matched by the template.

For example, the effective amplitude of the radiation from a bump on a neutron star (Equation (17))will be $`h_{bump}\sqrt{2fT_{obs}}`$, where $`T_{obs}`$ is the observation time. In order to detect this radiation, detectors may need to observe for long periods, say 4 months, during which they accumulate billions of cycles of the waveform. During this time, the star may spin down by a detectable amount, and the motion of the Earth introduces large changes in the apparent frequency of the signal, so matched filtering needs to be done with care and precision.

Another example is a binary system followed to coalescence, i.e.  where the chirp time in Equation (19) is less than the observing time. For neutron-star binaries observed by ground-based detectors this will always be the case (see the next section), so the effective amplitude is roughly

$$h_{chirp}h_{bin}\sqrt{f_{gw}t_{chirp}}\frac{GM}{rc^2}\left(\frac{GM}{Rc^2}\right)^{1/4},$$
(21)
where for $`f_{gw}`$ one must use twice the orbital frequency $`\sqrt{GM/R^3}/4\pi `$. This may seem a puzzling result, because it says that the effective amplitude of the signal gets smaller as the stars get closer. But this just means that the signal will be more detectable if it is picked up earlier, since Equation (21) assumes that the signal is followed right to coalescence. If one picks up the signal at earlier times, then there are more cycles of the waveform to filter for, and this naturally gives a better signal-to-noise ratio. This gives an advantage to detectors that can operate at lower frequencies. This has been an important consideration in the design of modern detectors. (See Gravitational Radiation Detection on Earth and in Space.)

In general, the sensitivity of detectors will be limited not just by detector technology, but also by the duration of the observation, the quality of the signal predictions, and even by the availability of computer processing power for the data analysis.

## Astronomical sources of gravitational waves

### Estimating the frequency

The signals for which the best waveform predictions are available have narrowly defined frequencies. In some cases the frequency is dominated by an existing motion, such as the spin of a pulsar. But in most cases the frequency will be related to the natural frequency for a self-gravitating body, defined as

$$f_0=\sqrt{G\overline{\rho }/4\pi },$$
(22)
where $`\overline{\rho }`$ is the mean density of mass-energy in the source. This is of the same order as the binary orbital frequency and the fundamental pulsation frequency of the body.

The frequency is determined by the size $`R`$ and mass $`M`$ of the source, taking $`\overline{\rho }=3M/4\pi R^3`$. For a neutron star of mass $`1.4M_{}`$ and radius 10 km, the natural frequency is $`f_0=1.9`$ kHz. For a black hole of mass $`10M_{}`$ and radius $`2GM/c^2=30`$ km, it is $`f_0=1`$ kHz. And for a large black hole of mass $`2.5\times 10^6M_{}`$, such as the one at the center of our Galaxy, this goes down in inverse proportion to the mass to $`f_0=4`$ mHz.

Fig. 2 shows the mass-radius diagram for likely sources of gravitational waves. Three lines of constant natural frequency are plotted: $`f_0=10^4`$ Hz, $`f_0=1`$ Hz, and $`f_0=10^4`$ Hz. These are interesting frequencies from the point of view of observing techniques: gravitational waves between 1 and $`10^4`$ Hz are accessible to ground-based detectors, while lower frequencies are observable only from space. (See the article Gravitational Radiaton Detection on Earth and in Space.) Also shown is the line marking the black-hole boundary. This has the equation $`R=2GM/c^2`$. There are no objects below this line. This line cuts through the ground-based frequency band in such a way as to restrict ground-based instruments to looking at stellar-mass objects. Nothing over a mass of about $`10^4M_{}`$ can radiate above 1 Hz.

A number of typical relativistic objects are placed in the diagram: a neutron star, a binary pair of neutron stars that spirals together as they orbit, some black holes. Two other interesting lines are drawn. The lower (dashed) line is the 1-year coalescence line, where the orbital shrinking timescale in Equation (19) is less than one year. The upper (solid) line is the 1-year chirp line: if a binary lies below this line then its orbit will shrink enough to make its orbital frequency increase by a measurable amount in one year. (In a one-year observation one can in principle measure changes in frequency of $`1\mathrm{yr}^1`$, or $`3\times 10^8`$ Hz.)

It is clear from the figure that any binary system that is observed from the ground will coalesce within an observing time of one year. Since pulsar statistics suggest that this happens less than once every $`10^5`$ years in our Galaxy, ground-based detectors must be able to register these events in a volume of space containing at least $`10^6`$ galaxies in order to have a hope of seeing occasional coalescences. When detectors reach this sensitivity (sometime in the first decade of the 21st century), then astronomers will be able to use the observed chirping binaries as standard candles to measure distance scales in the Universe.

### Radiation from neutron-star normal modes

In Fig. 2 there is a dot for the typical neutron-star. The corresponding frequency is the fundamental vibrational frequency of such an object. In fact, neutron stars have a rich spectrum of non-radial normal modes, which fall into several families: f-, g-, p-, w-, and r-modes have all been studied. If their gravitational wave emissions can be detected, then the details of their spectra would be a sensitive probe of their structure and of the Equation of State of Neutron Stars, in much the same way that Helioseismology probes the interior of the Sun. This is a challenge to ground-based detectors, which cannot yet make sensitive observations as high as 10 kHz.

### Radiation from gravitational collapse

The event that forms a neutron star is the gravitational collapse that produces in a supernova. It is difficult to predict the waveform or amplitude expected from this event, because we have no observational evidence about how nonspherical the collapse event might be in a typical supernova: the collapse is hidden deep within the star. So we can only guess. For example, a gravitational wave burst might be broad-band, centered on 1 kHz, or it might be a few cycles of radiation at a frequency anywhere between 100 Hz and 10 kHz, chirping up or down. The amplitude could be large, in which a good fraction of the energy released by the collapse is radiated in gravitational waves, or it could be negligibly small. It is indeed ironic that, although detecting supernovae was the initial goal of detector development when it started 4 decades ago, little more is known today about what to expect than scientists knew then.

### Radiation from r-modes

Hot neutron stars that rotate faster than about 100-200 Hz appear to be unstable to the emission of gravitational radiation through amplification of their r-modes by the CFS mechanism. In stars colder than about $`10^8`$ K, viscosity may be strong enough to damp out this instability. This instability may explain why only old, recycled, cold pulsars are seen at higher rotation rates. It also suggests that the formation of a rapidly rotating neutron star may be followed by a period of steady gravitational radiation as the star emits angular momentum and spins down to its stability limit. If as few as 10% of all the neutron stars formed since Star Formation began (at a redshift of perhaps 4) went through such a spindown, then they may have produced a detectable random background of gravitational radiation.

Interestingly, the r-modes are disturbances primarily of the fluid velocity; they have little density perturbation. Their name comes from their similarity to the Rossby waves of oceanography. The gravitational radiation they emit is not primarily mass-quadrupole (as in Equation (12)), but rather mass-current-quadrupole, the analog of magnetic quadrupole radiation in electromagnetism. This is the wave counterpart of what is called gravitomagnetism, which is responsible for the Lense-Thirring effect: an extra precession of a spinning gyroscope as it orbits a rotating body like the Earth caused by the spin-spin gravitational coupling of the gyroscope to the Earth.

## Black holes and gravitational waves

Black holes are regions of spacetime within which everything is trapped: light cannot escape, nor can anything else that moves slower than light. The boundary of this region is called the event horizon. This boundary is a dynamical surface. If any mass-energy falls into the hole, the area of the horizon increases. In addition, the horizon will generally wobble when this happens. These wobbles settle down quickly, emitting gravitational waves, and leaving a smooth (and slightly larger) horizon afterwards.

Undisturbed black holes are time-independent and smooth. In fact, according to general relativity the external gravitational field of such a black hole and the size and shape of its horizon are fully determined by only three numbers: the total mass, electric charge and angular momentum of the black hole. This black-hole uniqueness theorem is remarkable, considering how much variety there can be in the material that collapsed to form the black hole and that may have subsequently fallen in.

Observations of the gravitational waves emitted by a wobbling horizon or by a particle in orbit around a black hole have the potential to test the uniqueness theorem and thereby to verify the predictions of general relativity about the strongest possible gravitational fields.

Astronomers now recognize that there is an abundance of black holes in the universe. Observations of various kinds have located black holes in X-ray binary systems in the Galaxy and in the centers of galaxies.

These two classes of black holes have very different masses. Stellar black holes typically have masses of around $`10M_{}`$, and are thought to have been formed by the gravitational collapse of the center of a large, evolved Red Giant Star, perhaps in a supernova explosion. Massive black holes in galactic centers seem to have masses between $`10^6`$ and $`10^{10}M_{}`$, but their history and method of formation are not yet understood.

Both kinds of black hole can radiate gravitational waves. According to Fig. 2, stellar black hole radiation will be in the ground-based frequency range, while galactic holes are detectable only from space. The radiation from a black hole typically is strongly damped, lasting only a few cycles about the frequency, which for a spherical black hole is given by Equation (22) with $`R=2GM/c^2`$:

$$f_{BH}10\left(\frac{M}{M_{}}\right)^1\mathrm{Hz}.$$

### Stellar-mass black holes

Radiation from stellar black holes is expected mainly from coalescing binary systems, when one or both of the components is a black hole. Although such systems are thought to be rarer than systems of two neutron stars, the larger mass of the black hole makes the system visible from a greater distance. By measuring the chirp mass (as discussed above) observers will recognize that they have a black-hole system. It is very possible that the first observations of binaries by interferometers will be of black holes.

When a two-black-hole binary coalesces, there should be a burst of gravitational radiation that will depend in detail on the masses and spins of the objects. Numerical simulations of such events will be needed to interpret this signal, and possibly even to extract it from the instrumental noise of the detector. The research field of numerical relativity is making rapid progress, and it can be expected to produce informative simulations in the first few years of the 21st century, using the largest and fastest computers available at that time.

### Massive and supermassive black holes

Gravitational radiation is expected from supermassive black holes in two ways. In one scenario, two massive black holes spiral together in a much more powerful version of the coalescence we have just discussed. The frequency is much lower, but the amplitude is higher. Equation (21) implies that the effective signal amplitude is almost linear in the masses of the holes, so that a signal from two $`10^6M_{}`$ black holes will have an amplitude $`10^5`$ times bigger than the signal from two $`10M_{}`$ holes at the same distance. Even allowing for differences in technology, space-based detectors will be able to study such events with a very high signal-to-noise ratio no matter where in the universe they occur.

Observations of coalescing massive black-hole binaries will therefore provide strong tests of the validity of general relativity in the regime of strong gravitational fields, provided that numerical simulations can match the accuracy of the observations by that time.

The event rate for such coalescences is not easy to predict: it could be zero, but it may be large. It seems that the central core of most galaxies may contain a black hole of at least $`10^6M_{}`$. This is known to be true for our galaxy and for a number of others nearby. Supermassive black holes (up to a few times $`10^9M_{}`$) are believed to power Quasi-Stellar Objects and Active Galaxies. There is some evidence that the mass of the central black hole is proportional to the mass of the core of the host galaxy.

If black holes are formed with their galaxies, in a single spherical gravitational collapse event, and if nothing happens to them after that, then coalescences will never be seen. But it is believed that Galaxy Formation probably occurred through the merger of smaller units, sub-galaxies of masses upwards of $`10^6M_{}`$. If these units had their own black holes, then the mergers would have resulted in the coalescence of many of the holes on a timescale shorter than the present age of the universe. This would give an event rate of several per year. If the supermassive black holes were formed from smaller holes in a hierarchical merger scenario, then the event rate could be hundreds or thousands per year. It is likely that only space-based observations of gravitational waves will answer these questions.

A second scenario for the production of radiation by massive black holes is the swallowing of a stellar-mass black hole or a neutron star by the large hole. Massive black holes exist in the middle of dense star clusters. The tidal disruption of main-sequence or giant stars that stray too close to the hole is thought to provide the gas that powers the quasar phenomenon. These clusters will also contain a good number of neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes. They are too compact to be disrupted by the hole even if they fall directly into it.

Such captures therefore emit a gravitational wave signal that may be approximated by studying the motion of a “point mass” near a black hole. It will again emit a chirp of radiation, but in this case the orbit may be very eccentric. The details of the waveform encode information about the geometry of space-time near the hole. In particular, it may be possible to measure the mass and spin of the hole and thereby to test the uniqueness theorem for black holes. The event rate is not very dependent on the details of galaxy formation, and is probably high enough for many detections per year from a space-based detector.

## Gravitational waves from the Big Bang

Gravitational waves have traveled almost unimpeded through the universe since they were generated at times as early as $`10^{24}`$ s after the Big Bang. Observing them would provide important constraints on theories of Inflation and high-energy physics.

Inflation is an attractive scenario for the early universe because it makes the large-scale homogeneity of the universe easier to understand. It also provides a mechanism for producing initial density perturbations large enough to evolve into galaxies as the universe expands. These perturbations are accompanied by gravitational-field perturbations that travel through the universe, redshifting in the same way that photons do. Today these perturbations should form a random background of gravitational radiation.

The perturbations arise by parametric amplification of quantum fluctuations in the gravitational wave field that existed before inflation began. The huge expansion associated with inflation puts energy into these fluctuations, converting them into real gravitational waves with classical amplitudes.

If inflation did not occur, then the perturbations that led to galaxies must have arisen in some other way, and it is possible that this alternative mechanism also produced gravitational waves. One candidate is cosmic defects, including cosmic strings and cosmic texture. (See Topological Defects in Cosmology.) Although observations at present seem to rule cosmic defects out as a candidate for galaxy formation, cosmic strings may nevertheless have produced observable gravitational waves.

If inflation did not occur, there could also be a thermal background of gravitational waves at a temperature similar to that of the cosmological microwave background, but this radiation would have such a high frequency that it would not be detectable by any known or proposed technique.

The random background will be detectable as a noise in the detector that competes with instrumental noise. In a single detector, such as the first space-based detector, this noise must be larger than the instrumental noise to be detected, and one must have great confidence in the detector in order to claim that the observed noise is external. This is how the cosmic microwave background was originally discovered in a radio telescope.

If there are two detectors, then one can multiply the outputs of the two detectors together and sum (integrate). In this way, the random wave field in one detector acts like a matched filtering template, matching the random field in the other detector. This allows the detection of noise that is below the instrumental noise of the individual detectors. For this to work, the two detectors must be close enough together to experience the same random wave field. In practice, the sensitivity of this method falls off rapidly with separation if the detectors are more than a wavelength apart.

### Measure of the strength of random gravitational waves

When describing the strength of a random wave field, it is not appropriate to measure the amplitude of any single component. Rather, the r.m.s. amplitude of the field is the observable quantity. It is common to use an equivalent measure, the energy density $`\rho _{gw}(f)`$ in the radiation field as a function of frequency $`f`$. For a cosmological field, what is relevant is to normalize this energy density to the critical density $`\rho _c`$ required to close the universe. It is thus conventional to define

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{gw}:=\frac{d\rho _{gw}/\rho _c}{d\mathrm{ln}f}.$$
(23)
This is roughly the fraction of the closure energy density in random gravitational waves between the frequency $`f`$ and $`2.718f`$.

Current and planned detectors may reach a sensitivity of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{gw}10^9`$ at 1 mHz and $`10^{10}`$ at 40 Hz, but there is a possibility that backgrounds due to other sources (binary white dwarf systems and r-mode spindown, as discussed above) could obscure a cosmological background at these levels.

### Predicted spectrum of cosmological radiation

The simplest models of inflation suggest that the spectrum of the gravitational wave background should be flat, so that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{gw}`$ is independent of frequency over a very large range of frequencies. In this case, the observed fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation set a limit on gravitational radiation at ultra-low frequencies, and this constrains the energy density in the observable range (0.1 mHz to 10 kHz) to below about $`10^{13}`$ of closure. This will be too small to be seen by the current and planned detectors on the ground or in space.

But there is a great deal of room in these models for other spectra. The period before inflation may produce initial conditions for the phase of parametric amplification that give large amounts of radiation in the observable frequency range. One family of models based in superstring theory has a spectrum that rises at high frequencies. If a cosmological background from inflation or from cosmic defects can be observed, it will contain important clues to the nature of the theory that unifies gravitation with the rest of quantum physics.

## Conclusions

The first few years of the 21st century should see the first direct detections of gravitational radiation and the opening of the field of gravitational wave astronomy. Beyond that, over a period of a decade or more, one may expect observations to yield important and useful information about binary systems, stellar evolution, neutron stars, black holes, strong gravitational fields, and cosmology.

If gravitational wave astronomy follows the example of other fields, like X-Ray Astronomy and Radio Astronomy, then at some level of sensitivity it will begin to discover sources that were completely unexpected. Many scientists think the chance of this happening early is very good, since the processes that produce gravitational waves are so different from those that produce the electromagnetic radiation on which most present knowledge of the universe is based, and since more than 90% of the matter in the universe is dark and interacts with visible matter only through gravitation.

Present and planned detectors are known not to be ideal for some kinds of gravitational wave sources. Sensitive measurements of a cosmological background of radiation from the big bang may not be possible with these instruments if the spectrum follows the predictions of “standard” inflation theory. Most of the normal mode oscillations of neutron stars will be very hard to detect, because the radiation is weak and at a high frequency, but the science there is compelling: neutron-star seismology may be the only way to probe the interiors of neutron stars and understand these complex and fascinating objects. Detector technology will continually improve, and these sources provide important long-term goals for this field. There will clearly be much to do after the first observations are successfully made.

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