Gravitational Waves and Coalescing Black Holes

Sammanfattning: Gravitation is a manifestation of the space-time curvature and gravitational waves aredistortions traveling through the fabric of space-time. Scientists have tried to detectgravitational waves for decades, but the first direct detection of gravitational waves andthe first observation of a binary black hole merger was made in 2015. The purpose ofthis report is to introduce General Relativity and binary black holes and to calculate thetime to coalescence of two back holes with circular or elliptical orbits. We find that abinary black hole in an elliptical orbit with large eccentricity coalesces faster than in acircular orbit.