Gravitational Radiation, Luminous Black Holes And Gamma-ray Burst Supernovae

Gravitational Radiation, Luminous Black Holes, and Gamma-Ray Burst Supernovae Black holes and gravitational radiation are two of the most dramatic predictions of general relativity. The quest for rotating black holes – discovered by Roy P. Kerr as exact solutions to the Einstein equations – is one of the most exciting challenges currently facing physicists and astronomers. Gravitational Radiation, Luminous Black Holes and Gamma-ray Burst Supernovae takes the reader through the theory of gravitational radiation and rotating black holes, and the phenomenology of GRB supernovae. Topics covered include Kerr black holes and the frame-dragging of spacetime, luminous black holes, compact tori around black holes, and black hole–spin interactions. It concludes with a discussion of prospects for gravitational-wave detections of a long-duration burst in gravitational waves as a method of choice for identifying Kerr black holes in the universe. This book is ideal for a special topics graduate course on gravitational-wave astronomy and as an introduction to those interested in this contemporary development in physics. Maurice H. P. M. van Putten studied at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands and received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. He has held postdoctoral positions at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research at Cornell University. He then joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and became a member of the new Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory (MIT-LIGO), where he teaches a special-topic graduate course based on his research. Professor van Putten’s research in theoretical astrophysics has spanned a broad range of topics in relativistic magnetohydrodynamics, hyperbolic formulations of general relativity, and radiation processes around rotating black holes. He has led global collaborations on the theory of gamma-ray burst supernovae from rotating black holes as burst sources of gravitational radiation. His theory describes a unique link between gravitational waves and Kerr black holes, two of the most dramatic predictions of general relativity. Discovery of triplets – gamma-ray burst supernovae accompanied by a long-duration gravitational-wave burst – provides a method for calorimetric identification of Kerr black holes in the universe. Gravitational Radiation, Luminous Black Holes, and Gamma-Ray Burst Supernovae M A U R I C E H. P. M. V A N P U T T E N Massachusetts Institute of Technology cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University