Gravitational waves from binary black holes

BALA R IYER

Raman Research Institute, C.V. Raman Avenue, Sadashivanagar, Bangalore 560 080, India

E-mail: bri@rri.res.in

Abstract. It is almost a century since Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves as

one of the consequences of his general theory of relativity. A brief historical overview including

Chandrasekhar’s contribution to the subject is first presented. The current status of the experimental

search for gravitational waves and the attendant theoretical insights into the two-body problem in

general relativity arising from computations of gravitational waves from binary black holes are then

broadly reviewed.

Keywords. Gravitational waves; binary black holes.

PACS Nos 04.25.Nx; 04.30.Db; 95.55.Ym