Gravitational waves from rotating and precessing rigid bodies. II - General solutions and computationally useful formulas
A rigid, freely precessing Newtonian body emits gravitational radiation. In this paper the classical-mechanics results for free precession which are needed in order to calculate the weak-field slow-motion quadrupole-moment gravitational waves are reviewed. Within that formalism, algorithms for computing the exact gravitational power radiated and waveforms produced by arbitrary rigid-body freely precessing source are given. Also presented are the dominant terms in series expansions of the waveforms for the case of an almost-spherical object precessing with a small wobble angle. These series expansions, which retain the precise frequency dependence of the waves, may be useful for gravitational astronomers when freely precessing sources begin to be observed.