Binary systems: higher order gravitational radiation damping and wave emission

Abstract

The paper treats the motion of binary systems under the back-reaction of the gravitational radiation generated by the quasi-elliptic and quasi-hyperbolic post-Newtonian motions of the binaries. The angular momentum losses are calculated and, together with the already known energy losses, the changes of the eccentricities and semimajor axes are derived, allowing the determination of a detailed picture of the radiation damping in binary systems up to the 3.5 post-Newtonian order. The wave-forms of the higher order gravitational radiation are presented. In particular, their dependencies on the periastron shifts are made explicit. Various cases of the motion of the binaries and of the waveforms are shown graphically.