Date of Award

5-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

College/School

College of Science and Mathematics

Department/Program

Mathematical Sciences

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Marc Favata

Committee Member

Arup Mukherjee

Committee Member

Bogdan Nita

Abstract

The detection of gravitational waves from binary black hole and binary neutron star mergers has ushered in a new age of observational astronomy. Anticipation of detection from these coalescing compact binaries has led to the development of models for comparison using analytical and numerical techniques. Typically, these methods model gravitational-wave signals as small oscillations that grow over time, reach some maximum value, and eventually decay to zero. However, these models are incomplete: compact binaries can emit gravitational waves that decay to a non-zero value. This phenomenon is known as the gravitational-wave memory. In particular, the signal from compact binaries displays a nonlinear memory effect, which arises from gravitational waves produced by the previously emitted gravitational-wave energy. Using a semi-analytic approach we generate nonlinear memory signals for a range of binary black hole parameters, extending previous work. We also, for the first time, compute the nonlinear memory for binary neutron star mergers. Additionally, we perform the first comparison between our semi-analytic approach and full numerical relativity simulations of the nonlinear memory. These waveforms will be useful in future searches of the nonlinear memory in ground and space-based detectors.

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