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December 2003
Gravity waves: Merger mania
One of the major challenges of modern physics is the direct detection of gravitational waves. The detectors currently available on Earth aim to detect the burst of gravitational waves expected to result from the merging of two neutron stars in a binary system. The present estimate of the rate of such events in the Galaxy is low, mainly because only a few are known. The discovery of a new, coalescing double neutron star quite close to us in galactic terms promises to revitalize the search for such systems. These two neutron stars are likely to merge rather sooner than any other known pair, in about 85 million years. This and the low luminosity of the newly discovered binary suggest that the merger rate for double-neutron-star systems in both the Galaxy and the Universe as a whole is an order of magnitude greater than was thought.
An increased estimate of the merger rate of
double neutron stars from observations of a highly relativistic system
M. BURGAY, N. D'AMICO, A. POSSENTI, R. N. MANCHESTER,
A. G. LYNE, B. C. JOSHI, M. A. MCLAUGHLIN, M. KRAMER, J. M. SARKISSIAN,
F. CAMILO, V. KALOGERA, C. KIM & D. R. LORIMER
Nature 426, 531–533 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature02124
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Astrophysics: Testing time for gravity
E. P. J. VAN DEN HEUVEL
The discovery of two neutron stars tightly orbiting each other suggests
that the rate of neutron-star mergers in the Universe is higher than had
been thought — which is good news for seekers of gravitational waves.
Nature 426, 504–505 (2003); doi:10.1038/426504a
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