Proper velocity Proper velocity In relativity, proper velocity, also known as celerity, is an alternative to velocity for measuring motion. Whereas velocity relative to an observer is distance per unit time where both distance and time are measured by the observer, proper velocity relative to an observer divides observer-measured distance by the time elapsed on the clocks of the traveling object. Proper velocity equals velocity at low speeds. Proper velocity at high speeds, moreover, retains many of the properties that velocity loses in relativity compared with Newtonian theory. For example, proper velocity equals momentum per unit mass at any speed, and therefore
Chirp mass terms of other common mass parameters: where formula_7 is the total mass of the system, formula_8 is the reduced mass of the system, formula_9 is the mass ratio, and formula_10 is the symmetric mass ratio. In general relativity, the phase evolution of a binary orbit can be computed using a post-Newtonian expansion, a perturbative expansion in powers of the orbital velocity formula_11. The first order gravitational wave frequency, formula_12, evolution is described by the differential equation where formula_14 and formula_15 are the speed of light and Newton's gravitational constant, respectively. Integrating equation () with respect to time gives: where C