I don’t really understand much about gravity waves although I do have some sense as to how they’ll be detected. My understanding is that different modes of detection will be used to detect gravitational waves of different frequencies.
What I do not understand at all, though, is how one calculates or predicts the expected frequency of gravity waves. For a binary system with a pulsar, is the anticipated frequency of the gravity waves simply the frequency of the pulsar’s rotation (or a simple function thereof)? How about a supernova? What factors go in to prediciting the frequency of its associated gravity waves? Is this even explainable in lay terms?
Thanks
My problem with the concept of gravity waves is how a wave/particle would bend light and slow time. Also, if such a thing exists, how would the frequency and amplitude manifest themselves in real world observations (as relates to sound - f=pitch, a=volume; light f=color, a=brightness)? Does gravity have such analogous properties? Or is intensity its only property?
I thought that gravity was part of the fabric of space itself.
ie, if the universe where a sheet of paper, light and mater are drawings on the paper, and gravity is the shape of the paper itself.
In general, the fundamental gravitational wave frequency will be twice the frequency of the physical system generating it. So, for instance, if two neutron stars have a five-minute orbital period around each other, then they’ll produce gravitational waves with a period of two and a half seconds. For a spinning neutron star, the frequency will be twice the spin frequency. For a supernova, it’s more complicated: A perfectly spherical supernova would produce no gravitational waves at all. To know anything about the waves which are actually produced, you need to know what the exact asymmetry of the supernova is, which takes a lot of very difficult computer modelling.
Hello everyone,
I just found a site to answer all our questions about gravitational waves (all you have to do is know a bit of maths ;))
http://arcturus.mit.edu/8.224/GravWavesFINAL.pdf
btw, the frequencies of GW that LIGO are trying to detect are between 75 and 500 hz. 
Thank you!
Should it be self evident to me that the frequency of the resultant gravitiational wave is twice that of the system generating it? Is it a result of the fact that gravity is strictly attractive? Is it a tidal effect?
Here’s an easy way to think of it: Consider two identical objects, orbiting each other (two stars, maybe, or two black holes, or whatnot, so long as they have the same mass). Take a snapshot of the system. Then, wait half a period, and take another snapshot. They’ll be indistinguishable. It stands to reason, then, that the instantaneous radiation produced at those two instants would also be indistinguishable. So the wave period must be half the orbital period. This does not happen with electromagnetic waves, because there you’d have a positive and a negative charge, which could be distinguished.
This also works, by the way, for non-identical masses, but the explanation is a bit more complicated.
Indeed. Nicely explained!