We investigated theoretical considerations in the design of an Earth-based laser interferometer for detecting gravitational waves. Our design envisages a ground-based tracking station in communication with two geosynchronous satellites. We assumed linearized gravitational waves in a Schwarzschild spacetime geometry outside the Earth. Our initial calculations show that such a design is sufficien...

The acceleration of charged particles in the presence of a magnetic field and gravitational waves is under consideration. It is shown that the weak gravitational waves can cause the acceleration of low energy particles under appropriate conditions. Such conditions may be satisfied close to the source of the gravitational waves if the magnetized plasma is in a turbulent state.

We study the decoherence of atomic interferometers due to the scattering of stochastic gravitational waves. We evaluate the ‘direct’ gravitational effect registered by the phase of the matter waves as well as the ‘indirect’ effect registered by the light waves used as beam-splitters and mirrors for the matter waves. Considering as an example the space project HYPER, we show that both effects ar...

The gravitational wave window onto the universe is expected to open in ~ 5 years, when ground-based detectors make the first detections in the high-frequency regime. Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime produced by the motions of massive objects such as black holes and neutron stars. Since the universe is nearly transparent to gravitational waves, these signals carry direct information ...

Sources of high frequency gravitational waves are reviewed. Gravitational collapse, rotational instabilities and oscillations of the remnant compact objects are potentially important sources of gravitational waves. Significant and unique information for the various stages of the collapse, the evolution of protoneutron stars and the details of the equations of state of such objects can be drawn ...

Neutron stars are excellent emitters of gravitational waves. Squeezing matter beyond nuclear densities invites exotic physical processes, many of which violently transfer large amounts of mass at relativistic velocities, disrupting spacetime and generating copious quantities of gravitational radiation. I review mechanisms for generating gravitational waves with neutron stars. This includes grav...

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors have reached their design sensitivity, and searches for gravitational waves are ongoing. We highlight current attempts to detect various classes of signals. These include unmodelled sub-second bursts of gravitational radiation, such as from core-collapse supernovae and gamma-ray burst engines. Gravitational waves from isol...

It has been argued that the energy content in time varying spacetimes can be obtained by using the approximate Lie symmetries of the geodesics equations in that spacetime. When applied to cylindrical gravitational waves, it gives an enhancement of the waves. While, according to this proposal, the energy of the waves does go to zero asymptotically, it decreases as the inverse square root of the ...

We investigate the possibility to use atom interferometers to detect gravitational waves. We discuss the interaction of gravitational waves with an atom interferometer and analyze possible schemes.