This thesis reports on investigations in two major areas: astrophysicsand relativity. It is divided into six independent chapters.
Chapter I contains estimates of the astrophysically-likely amplitudeof gravitational radiation emitted by the Crab and Vela pulsars. Formy analysis, I model the pulsars as rapidly-rotating, freely-precessing,rigid or elastic solid bodies. I find that the Crab is likely to producegravitational waves at Earth with dimensionless amplitude 10-27±2, andthat Vela is likely to give waves one or two orders of magnitude larger.
Chapters II and III study the gravitational radiation produced byan idealized rotating and freely-precessing rigid body in the weak-field,slow-motion, small-stresses, quadrupole-moment formalism. Chapter II givesthe results for axisymmetric objects and for arbitrarily shaped objectsundergoing small-angle precession. In that chapter, I also discuss theapplication of my results to neutron stars in nature, and I describe indetail how to analyze the incoming waves and extract information abouttheir source. Chapter III extends the analysis of Chapter II to thegeneral case of an arbitrary rigid body undergoing large-angle precession.
Chapter IV considers all astrophysically-reasonable sources ofgravitational waves. Based on a minimal set of "cherished beliefs" aboutthe universe and about gravitation, I give general upper limits to theexpected intensity of gravitational radiation at the earth, at variousfrequencies and from a variety of sources.
Chapter V examines a "natural" coordinate system which might be setup by a rotating and accelerating observer. I expand the metric throughsecond-order terms in distance from the origin of the coordinates; fromthe metric, I derive the equations of motion for test particles. Iidentify many forces and pseudoforces in the equations of motion, andI discuss how my results may be used to analyze some laboratory gravitationalexperiments.
Chapter VI of this thesis is a report on my results in studying nucleo-synthesisin stars with neutron-star cores. I was not able to generateany self-consistent models with a total mass of 16 M⊙, core mass of 1 M⊙,and core radius of 10 km; nuclear reactions fell short of producing theneeded luminosity by a factor of 25 or more. I describe in detail mymodeling procedures and the reasons for the failure of nucleosynthesis,and I point out extensions and modifications of my models which may bemore successful.
