Pubs.GISS: Abstract of O'Connell and Salmon 1967

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O'Connell and Salmon 1967

O'Connell, R.F., and A. Salmon, 1967: Radiation of gravitational waves in Brans-Dicke general-relativity theory. Phys. Rev., 160, 1108-1110, doi:10.1103/PhysRev.160.1108.

The rate of radiation of gravitational waves, P_BD=P_T+P_S, from a system of binary stars is calculated using the general-relativity theory of Brans and Dicke. It is shown that, for a circular orbit, the radiation arises purely from the tensor-field contribution P_T, and P_BD is smaller than the corresponding Einstein result PE, by a factor (2ω+3) / (2ω +4), where ω is the usual Brans-Dicke dimensionless constant (ω ≈ 6). In the case of an elliptic orbit, there is also a contribution P_S from the scalar field. However, we show that the contribution of P_S to P_BD is always negligible compared to the contribution P_T. Thus we are able to conclude that, for all values of the eccentricity e, the Brans-Dicke theory predicts that the rate of gravitational radiation from a system of binary stars is always smaller, by a factor of the order of 15/16, than the rate predicted by Einstein's theory.