General Relativity and Compact Objects

Abstract: Starting with the conceptual foundation of general relativity (GR) - equivalence principle, space-time geometry and special relativity, I train cross hairs on two characteristic predictions of GR - black holes and gravitational waves. These two consequences of GR have played a significant role in relativistic astrophysics, e.g. compact X-ray sources, GRBs, quasars, blazars, coalescing binary pulsars, etc. With quantum theory wedded to GR, particle production from vacuum becomes a generic feature whenever event horizons are present. In this paper, I shall briefly discuss the fate of a `black hole atom' when Hawking radiation is taken into account. In the context of gravitational waves, I shall focus on the possible consequences of gravitational and electromagnetic radiation from highly magnetized and rapidly spinning white dwarfs. The discovery of RX J0648.0-4418 system - a WD in a binary with mass slightly over 1.2 $ M_{\odot}$, and rotating with spin period as short as 13.2 s, provides an impetus to revisit the problem of WD spin evolution due to energy loss.