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Introduction
Gravitational physics grew out of astronomy in the seven-
teenth century. Newtonian gravitation, besides being an ade-
quate and successful description of the gravitational interaction for
everyday purposes, had a profound influence on the philosophy of
natural science. It was the first example of the universality of
physical laws; the force that caused Newton's apocryphal apple to
fall was the same reason that the Moon falls toward the Earth, or
the Earth toward the Sun. As has been known since the discovery
of special relativity at the beginning of this century, Newtonian
gravitation cannot be a complete theory of gravitation. It cannot
be expressed in a relativistically covariant way and is not a field
theory in the modern sense. The epoch between the formulation of
special relativity in 1905 and the formulation of general relativity
in 1916 witnessed the development of many theories of gravita-
tion consistent with special relativity: scalar, vector, and tensor
theories in four dimensions. A few of these theories survive, and
several new theories have been developed in recent times. None
carry the weight of general relativity, but they do serve to high-
light the sensitive points in general relativity and help to generate
a scheme for testing general relativity.
General relativity imbeds gravitation in a theory that relates
the structure of space en c! time to the distribution of matter. As
3
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such, the framework set by general relativity becomes the arena
for the other interactions in nature. Indeed, Einstein and others
devoted considerable effort after the discovery of general relativity
to an unsuccessful attempt at trying to unify, through geometric
considerations alone, all the known interactions in nature. It is
ironic that recent attempts at this grand unification from quantum
field theory appear to be possible for all fields but gravitation.
The failure ~ in good measure due to the inability, at present,
to formulate a viable quantum theory of gravity an outstanding
theoretical problem.
Most of the consequences of classical (nonquantized) general
relativity have been theoretically studied over the past 70 years. In
its pristine form, the theory has no free parameters. A modification
to the theory, noted by Einstein shortly after its first formulation,
is the addition of a new term in the field equations, which would
only have an effect on space-time on the largest scales, in particular
in cosmological solutions.
In a purely mathematical sense the theory is complete and can
be tested at any level. One could hold the extreme view that the
agreement of general relativity with Newtonian gravitation in the
low-velocity, weak-field limit is adequate empirical justification for
the entire theoretical structure. A more critical viewpoint is that
the failure of the theory in any test that can be devised ~ sufficient
reason to render the entire theory invalid.
In the past 20 years, substantial theoretical progress has been
made toward understanding the inner structure of relativistic grav-
itation. Extensive work has been done on formal solutions to the
Einstein field equations and the meaning of the singularities in
the theory. The properties of black hole solutions have been in-
vestigated In sufficient depth to make firm predictions concerning
the gravitational radiation emitted by them in encounters with
other black holes or stars. In the past 10 years, numerical rel-
ativity has become an active field} by which the solutions of the
nonlinear differential equations of general relativity can be ~risual-
ized. A particularly important aspect of the numerical modeling
is the coupling of general relativity with fluid dynamics and mag-
netohydrodynamics in the attempt to understand astrophysical
phenomena such as stellar collapse, in which relativistic gravity
may play a major role in the final stage. A technique h" been
developed for weak gravitational fields that expands metric theo-
ries of relativistic gravity, including general relativity, into a set of
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s
terms multiplied by parameters associated with the degree that a
particular physical concept or symmetry is incorporated into the
theory. This parametric post-Newtonian (PPN) expansion serves
as a useful framework with which to test relativistic gravitation.
The profound consequences of general relativity are the phe-
nomena that involve strong spac~time curvature and the large-
scaTe global properties of space-time. In these regimes, gravitation
dominates all other interactions and Newtonian gravitation is not
even a fair approximation of reality. The unambiguous discovery of
a black hole, and especially the observation of the gravitational ra-
diation due to the interaction of ~ black hole with its surroundings,
would constitute the strongest confirmation of general relativity.
A complete understanding of cosrn~c evolution would provide as
sharp a test; however, the prospects for this are not as bright
considering the complexity of interpreting the astrophysical phe-
nomena that are the source of cosmological data.
General relativity makes specific predictions for new effects
when the sources of the field are in motion. In analogy with elec-
tricity and magnetism, the gravitational field can be divided into
electric and magnetic terms. In a weak field, the electric terms
correspond to Newtonian gravitation. The new magnetic terms
will come into evidence when both source and test body are in
relative motion. The magnetic interaction between the spinning
Earth and a spinning gyro ~ measurable and ~ the basis of a new
test of general relativity to be attempted In the space program
within the next 10 years. Magnetic gravitation is expected to be a
large effect in the field of a spinning black hole. It may play a role
in astrophysical phenomena, in particular ~ the explanation of the
jets in extragalactic double radio sources. Gravitational radiation
is predicted in all relativistic theories of gravitation. The sources
of the radiation are accelerating masses. In general relativity the
lowest-order radiation is due to the tim~dependent quadrupole
moment of the source. Binary stellar systems, aspheric stellar
collapse, colliding stellar systems, and rotating neutron stars (pul-
sars) are examples of sources of gravitational radiation that may
be detectable on Earth or by space-based receiving systems. The
direct detection of the radiation could serve to test general relativ-
~ty by confirming the propagation speed and polarization states of
the waves. Furthermore, as already indicated, gravitational waves
may be the best way to detect black holes and thereby test general
relativity in the strong-field, high-velocity limit.
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Gravitational wave astronomy could well open a new view of
the universe as it will expose phenomena that involve the coherent
motions of large masses at relativistic speeds. There processes will
generally occur in the innermost parts of active astrophysical re-
gions and therefore be obscured from "view" in the electromagnetic
astronomies. A particularly exciting although highly speculative
prospect ~ the possible detection of gravitation radiation noise
from the very earliest epoch of the universe that is completely
obscured in the electromagnetic and even neutrino astronomers.
The first observational evidence for relativistic gravitation was
the small discrepancy in the orbital motion of the planet Mercury
discovered in the nineteenth century. The orbit, taking account
of the perturbations due to the other objects In the solar system,
did not close on itself as predicted by Newtonian gravitation.
Einstein was wed aware of this and considered the ability of general
relativity to predict the motion of Mercury as strong evidence for
the correctness of the then new theory. The perihelion advance
of Mercury as wed as the bending of starlight by the Sun and
the gravitational red shift of spectral lines emanating from the
Sun relative to the same lines observed on Earth are the three
classical tests suggested by Einstein. It is interesting to note that
although the bending of light was observed in the welI-publicized
Eddington eclipse expedition of 1918, a reliable measurement of
this effect had to wait for the radio interferometer observations
of quasi-stelIar sources passing near the Sun in the past decade.
The gravitational red shift was not well measured until the middle
1960s by Mossbauer techniques on the ground and, more recently,
by the comparison of two hydrogen maser clocks, one on the
Earth's surface and the other in a suborbital trajectory. In the
mid-196Os, a new test became possible with the emergence of radar
astronomy that enabled the direct determination of the range to
solar system bodies, thereby measuring directly the space-time
curvature of the region around the Sun.
One of the most fortuitous discoveries for the observational
tests of relativistic gravitation is the binary pulsar system, which
was uncovered in a general radio search for pulsars. This system
appears to be composed of two neutron stars, one of which is a
stable pulsar and therefore a ~good" clock. The kinematics of this
system, observed through the Doppler shift of the pulsar signals
as it orbits about its companion, has established several of the
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classical relativistic tests and furthermore is now demonstrating
the first evidence for gravitational radiation damping.
Besides the red shift experiment mentioned above, the space
program has played an important role in experimental tests of
general relativity. Laser ranging to the corner reflectors placed
on the Moon by the Apollo program has allowed a test of the
principle of equivalence for gravitational self-energy. The Viking
program through the Mars Orbiter and Lander has provided range
information without the perturbations due to planetary topogra-
phy. The precision timing of radio signals across the solar system
to Viking and back to Earth has established the best observation
of the post-Newtonian time delay in the vicinity of the Sun. The
precision ephemerides of Mars, in concert with those of the other
planets in the solar system, have set the best limits on many of
the post-Newtonian parameters, including limits on the change of
G (Newtonian gravitational constant) with time.
The common element in this historical perspective of progress
in gaining empirical evidence for relativistic gravitation is the close
coupling to technical advances In both direct experiments and
observational techniques. There ~ no reason this should change in
the future. The space program is expected to play a decisive role
in this research.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
gravitational radiation
