Gravitational Wave Frequency Distribution for Two Orbiting Point Particles

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In this Demonstration you can change the orbital eccentricity of two point masses in an elliptic orbit to see how the power from the resulting gravitational wave is distributed over different frequencies. The radiated power is normalized with respect to its value at zero eccentricity. The radiated frequencies are integral multiples () of the orbital frequency of the point masses. Higher eccentricity leads to excitation of higher frequencies.
Contributed by: Satya Mohapatra (April 2012)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
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Reference
[1] M. Maggiore, Gravitational Waves Volume 1: Theory and Experiments, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.