Gravitational Waves from a Population of Galactic Neutron Stars

The existence of a large number of asymmetric, rotating neutron stars, each individually emitting periodic or quasi-periodic gravitational waves in the frequency band around 100 Hz, raises the possibility of detecting their combined signals, by exploiting the amplitude modulation of the received waves as the antenna changes its orientation with respect to fixed stars. This modulation is directly related to the amount of anisotropy present in the source distribution, and, if detected, could give valuable information about the spatial distribution of neutron stars in our Galaxy.