The course provides the basic knowledge needed to understand the burgeoning field of gravitational-wave science. It is designed for students of the Nuclear and Subnuclear Physics curriculum but is useful also to Astrophysics students.

Main topics: mechanisms of gravitational-wave emission; astrophysical sources of gravitational waves; operation of gravitational-wave detectors; analysis of gravitational-wave signals; the results of gravitational wave astronomy and its standing in an astrophysical context.
The final exam is focused on the presentation of a topic chosen from those presented in the course, as well as on a series of codified questions that measure what has been learned. The codified questions also serve to point to the most relevant topics which constitute the heart of gravitational wave science, as well as to establish a well-determined schedule for the study of the course topics.
The resources made available to students consist of easily available textbooks and material made available by the course teacher.

1. Knowledge and understanding
At the end of the course, the students shall be able to understand the astrophysical meaning of gravitational-wave observations.
2. Applying knowledge and understanding
At the end of the course, the students shall be able to proceed with a Master thesis on the course topic.
3. Making judgements
At the the end of the course, the students shall be able to understand the importance of new gravitational-wave observations in a broad astrophysical context.
4. Communication skills
At the end of the course, the students shall know the formalism and the basic terminology of this quickly developing field. The final exam, based on a presentation on a topic chosen from those presented in the course, aims to refine communication skills.
5. Learning skills
At the end of the course, the students shall be able to choose their learning path in the field of gravitational waves.

Good knowledge of classical physics and optics. Special relativity. Fourier series and Fourier transforms.

Tensors, Riemann manifolds, and spacetime curvature
Basic elements of general relativity
Linearized gravity
Propagation, generation and detection of gravitational waves
Tools to detect gravitational waves and their operating principles
Noise in gravitational-wave interferometers
Introduction to the analysis of gravitational-wave signals
Astrophysical sources of gravitational waves
Gravitational waves from compact binary systems
Multimessenger astronomy
The future of gravitational-wave science

T. A. Moore: "A General Relativity Workbook", University Science Books, 2013
Kip Thorne: "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy", Norton, 1995 (Italian edition: "Buchi neri e salti temporali", Castelvecchi, 2019)
J. Foster and J. D. Nightingale: "A Short Course in General Relativity", Springer, 2006

During the 2025-26 A.Y., the course topics shall remain mostly the same as in the 2024-25 A.Y. They are described in detail, with a wealth of handouts and other teaching materials, on the course web page
https://wwwusers.ts.infn.it/~milotti/Didattica/GravitationalWaves/GW_topics_24-25.html
This set of topics is a draft, improvements shall be implemented wherever possible.

Lectures and scientific seminars in the classroom.

For more information, please see the course website: https://wwwusers.ts.infn.it/~milotti/Didattica/GravitationalWaves/index.html

Short seminar (about 20 mins) on a course topic, followed by an oral examination (2 or 3 questions on the course topics). The most likely questions are listed in a special section of the course website (https://wwwusers.ts.infn.it/~milotti/Didattica/GravitationalWaves/Questions.html ).
The exams can be held in Italian or English, at the student's choice.

The final score shall be determined based on the correctness of the answers (more than 90% of the essential aspects correctly explained: score between 28 and 30+; between 70% and 90%, score between 24 and 27; between 50% and 70%, score between 18 and 23; less than 50%, insufficient).