Gravitational Wave Radiation from Binary Black Holes

This is a paper I wrote for a graduate course on General Relativity as a Junior at the University of Rochester.

Topics: Derivation of gravitational waves from the Einstein field equations under the linearized theory, derivation of the quadrupole formula for energy radiated from a system in the form of gravitational waves, equations describing gravitational wave radiation for a binary system: power radiated, rate of orbital decay, waveform of emitted gravitational waves. Comparison of linearized gravitational waves to the first LIGO detection “chirp” and waveform.