Sebastian Wyman with Lawrence Krauss

Gravitational Waves From the Early Universe

The student will initially master enough of general relativity and cosmology to understand the basic features of gravitational waves in an expanding universe. Then we will examine signatures of a stochastic background of gravitational waves from a variety of possible sources. Depending upon the intricacy of the calculations, both numerical and analytical, which will be performed by the student along with a postdoc and graduate student, one of several different detection schemes will be examined, either polarization of the cosmic microwave background in response to gravitational waves from global phase transitions, or the sensitivity to a stochastic background of gravitational waves of timing measurements of white dwarf pulsations. As the former project will occupy the bulk of the work for a graduate PhD thesis, clearly the component of the project that would be worked on by the student would only be a small part of the project. The latter project should be completely doable by the student, if we deem to move in that direction.