THE GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE SKY

A view of the sky seen in gravitational waves in a wide frequency rang e similar to 10(-9) - 10(3) Hz is considered. Stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB) produced by binary systems both galactic and ex tragalactic in origin is studied in more detail. A realistic ''map'' o f the GW sky is constructed for the first time based on the observed s tellar matter distribution within similar to 50 Mpc from the Sun accor ding to the Tully Catalog of Nearby Galaxies. This map accounts for bo th the binary produced stochastic GWB and GW radiated during supernova explosions. The total event rate of supernova explosions from the nea rby galaxies is found to be about 40 per year. The coalescence rate of binary neutron stars in these galaxies is about 1 per year. We furthe r study the ''transparency'' of the galactic stochastic GWB for observ ations made with GW detectors of different angular resolution. Critica l frequencies above which the galactic and extragalactic GWB become tr ansparent for a GW detector with 1 degrees angular resolution were fou nd to be about 2 x 10(-3) Hz and similar to 10 Hz, respectively.