Nonlinear gravitational-wave memory from binary black hole mergers

Details Nonlinear gravitational-wave memory from binary black hole mergers Nonlinear gravitational-wave memory from binary black hole mergers

2009-02-23

arxiv.org/abs/0902.3660v2

Astrophys.J.696:L159-L162,2009

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

4 pages, 3 figures. v2: minor changes to text and references; published in ApJ Letters

Scientific paper

10.1088/0004-637X/696/2/L159

Some astrophysical sources of gravitational waves can produce a "memory effect," which causes a permanent displacement of the test masses in a freely falling gravitational-wave detector. The Christodoulou memory is a particularly interesting nonlinear form of memory that arises from the gravitational-wave stress-energy tensor's contribution to the distant gravitational-wave field. This nonlinear memory contributes a nonoscillatory component to the gravitational-wave signal at leading (Newtonian-quadrupole) order in the waveform amplitude. Previous computations of the memory and its detectability considered only the inspiral phase of binary black hole coalescence. Using an "effective-one-body" (EOB) approach calibrated to numerical relativity simulations, as well as a simple fully analytic model, the Christodoulou memory is computed for the inspiral, merger, and ringdown. The memory will be very difficult to detect with ground-based interferometers, but is likely to be observable in supermassive black hole mergers with LISA out to a redshift of two. Detection of the nonlinear memory could serve as an experimental test of the ability of gravity to "gravitate."

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