Gravitational waves are predicted by the Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The direct detection of gravitational waves is one of the most challenging tasks in modern science and engineering due to the 'weak' nature of gravity. Recent development of the laser interferometer technology, however, makes it possible to build a detector on Earth that is sensitive up to 100-1000 Mpc for strong sources. It implies an expected detection rate of neutron star mergers, which are one of the most important targets for ground-based detectors, ranges between a few to a few hundred per year. Therefore, we expect that the gravitational-wave observation will be routine within several years. Strongest gravitational-wave sources include tight binaries composed of compact objects, supernova explosions, gamma-ray bursts, mergers of supermassive black holes, etc. Together with the electromagnetic waves, the gravitational wave observation will allow us to explore the most exotic nature of astrophysical objects as well as the very early evolution of the universe. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the theory of gravitational waves, principles of detections, gravitational-wave detectors, astrophysical sources of gravitational waves, and future prospects.

We present the sensitivity calculation results for observing the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIRB) by the Multi-purpose IR Imaging System (MIRIS), which will be launched in 2010 as a main payload of the Science and Technology Satellite 3 (STSAT-3). MIRIS will observe in I ( 0.9∼1.2um) and H (1.2∼2.0um) band with a 4×4 degree field of view to obtain the large scale structure ( ∼3 degree) of the CIRB. With the given specifications of the MIRIS, our sensitivity calculation results show that the MIRIS has a detection limit of ∼9nWm−2sr−1 (I band) and ∼6nWm−2sr−1 (H band), which is appropriate to observe the large scale structure of CIRB.

Many gravitational wave detectors are now being built or under operation throughout the world. In particular, LIGO has taken scientific data several times, although current sensitivity is not sufficient to detect the weak signals routinely. However, the sensitivities have been improving steadily over past years so that the real detection will take place in the near future. Data analysis is another important area in detecting the gravitational wave signal. We have carried out the basic research in order to implement data analysis software in Korea@home environment. We first studied the LIGO Science Collaboration Algorithm Library(LAL) software package, and extracted the module that can generate the virtual data of gravitational wave detector. Since burst sources such as merging binaries of neutron stars and black holes are likely to be detected first, we have concentrated on the simulation of such signals. This module can generate pure gravitational wave forms, noise suitable for LIGO, and combination of the signal and noise. In order to detect the gravitational signal embedded in the noisy data, we have written a simple program that employs 'matched filtering' method which is very effective in detecting the signal with known waveform. We found that this method works extremely well.