Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Scientific paper
2001-04-13
Phys.Rev. D64 (2001) 064004
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
15 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in PRD. This version incorporates referee's comments, and is much less verbose
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevD.64.064004
The inspiral of a ``small'' ($\mu \sim 1-100 M_\odot$) compact body into a ``large'' ($M \sim 10^{5-7} M_\odot$) black hole is a key source of gravitational radiation for the space-based gravitational-wave observatory LISA. The waves from such inspirals will probe the extreme strong-field nature of the Kerr metric. In this paper, I investigate the properties of a restricted family of such inspirals (the inspiral of circular, inclined orbits) with an eye toward understanding observable properties of the gravitational waves that they generate. Using results previously presented to calculate the effects of radiation reaction, I assemble the inspiral trajectories (assuming that radiation reacts adiabatically, so that over short timescales the trajectory is approximately geodesic) and calculate the wave generated as the compact body spirals in. I do this analysis for several black hole spins, sampling a range that should be indicative of what spins we will encounter in nature. The spin has a very strong impact on the waveform. In particular, when the hole rotates very rapidly, tidal coupling between the inspiraling body and the event horizon has a very strong influence on the inspiral time scale, which in turn has a big impact on the gravitational wave phasing. The gravitational waves themselves are very usefully described as ``multi-voice chirps'': the wave is a sum of ``voices'', each corresponding to a different harmonic of the fundamental orbital frequencies. Each voice has a rather simple phase evolution. Searching for extreme mass ratio inspirals voice-by-voice may be more effective than searching for the summed waveform all at once.
No associations
LandOfFree
Evolution of circular, non-equatorial orbits of Kerr black holes due to gravitational-wave emission: II. Inspiral trajectories and gravitational waveforms does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Evolution of circular, non-equatorial orbits of Kerr black holes due to gravitational-wave emission: II. Inspiral trajectories and gravitational waveforms, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Evolution of circular, non-equatorial orbits of Kerr black holes due to gravitational-wave emission: II. Inspiral trajectories and gravitational waveforms will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-394578