- Gravitational Waves - A Review on the Conceptual Foundations of Gravitational Radiation

Abstract

In this manuscript we review the theoretical foundations of gravitational waves in the framework of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Following Einstein's early efforts we first derive the linearised Einstein field equations and work out the corresponding gravitational wave equation. Moreover we present the gravitational potentials in the far away wave zone field point approximation obtained from the relaxed Einstein field equations. We close this review by taking a closer look on the radiative losses of gravitating $n$-body systems and present some aspects of the current interferometric gravitational waves detectors. Each section posses a separate appendix-contribution where further computational details are displayed. To conclude we summarize the main results and present a brief outlook in terms of current ongoing efforts to build a spaced based gravitational wave observatory.