Gravitational waves after the first detections

Valeria Ferrari

Università di Roma "La Sapienza"

 

The recent detection by the LIGO interferometers of the gravitational wave signals emitted by coalescing compact binaries provide an entirely new instrument to observe and investigate the universe we live in, challenging or confirming our beliefs on several crucial issues: how does gravity behave in the strong field regime, as near a black hole horizon, how does matter behave at the supranuclear densities which are typical of the inner core of neutron stars; how do gravitating structures evolve to form compact objects which eventually produce binary coalescence as those which have been, or will be, observed.  These and other issues, will be illustrated and discussed.