Continuous Gravitational Waves
The primary goal of this permanent independent research group is to detect and study continuous gravitational waves, which are expected from the population of Galactic neutron stars. The detection of continuous waves would allow to unveil stars that would otherwise remain invisible to us, and probe them through a messenger which would carry important information about their internal structure and composition.
Our research at a glance
What are neutron stars?
Neutron stars, the targets of this research program, are extreme objects formed in supernova explosions. They typically have around 40 % more mass than the Sun, but are only about 20 kilometers in diameter. (pic: NASA's GSFC)
What are continuous gravitational waves?
We target a type of gravitational wave signal different from all signals observed so far: the long continuous waveform expected from a rapidly spinning neutron star.
What do we expect to learn?
The detection of continuous gravitational waves will provide glimpses in the invisible population of neutron stars that inhabits our Galaxy and on the astrophysics of these mysterious objects. (pic: NASA/ESA/Hubble)
Group members
of the permanent independent research group
Einstein@Home
Einstein@Home is one of the largest distributed volunteer computing projects in the world with almost half a million participants. Their computers provide a computing power of roughly 9.7 PetaFlop/s. If listed on the Top-500, Einstein@Home would be one of the 100 most powerful computers in the world.
