Introduction to LIGO & Gravitational Waves
Inspiral Gravitational Waves
An artist's impression of two stars orbiting
each other and progressing (from left to right) to merger with
resulting gravitational waves. [Image: NASA/CXC/GSFC/T.Strohmayer]
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Inspiral gravitational waves are generated during the end-of-life stage
of binary systems where the two objects merge into one. These
systems are usually two neutron stars, two black holes, or a neutron
star and a black hole whose orbits have degraded to the point that the
two masses are about to coalesce. As the two masses rotate around
each other, their orbital distances decrease and their speeds increase,
much like a spinning figure skater who draws his or her arms in close
to their body. This causes the frequency of the gravitational
waves to increase until the moment of coalescence. The sound
these gravitational waves would produce is a chirp sound (much like
when increasing the pitch rapidly on a slide whistle) since the binary
system’s orbital frequency is increasing (any increase in frequency
corresponds to an increase in pitch). (
Listen)
An example signal from an inspiral
gravitational wave source. [Image: A. Stuver/LIGO]
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