Strategies for observing extreme mass ratio inspirals

I review the status of research, conducted by a variety of independent groups, aimed at the eventual observation of Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs) with gravitational wave detectors. EMRIs are binary systems in which one of the objects is much more massive than the other, and which are in a state of dynamical evolution that is dominated by the effects of gravitational radiation. Although these systems are highly relativistic, with the smaller object moving relative to the larger at nearly light-speed, they are well described by perturbative calculations which exploit the mass ratio as a natural small parameter. I review the use of such approximations to generate waveforms needed by data analysis algorithms for observation. I also briefly review the status of developing the data analysis algorithms themselves. Although this article is almost entirely a review of previous work, it includes (as an appendix) a new analytical estimate for the time over which the influence of radiation on the binary itself is observationally negligible.Comment: 17 pages, to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravity, minor edits to first version along with a revamped appendix and figure 3. Final published versio

Forced motion near black holes

We present two methods for integrating forced geodesic equations in the Kerr spacetime. The methods can accommodate arbitrary forces. As a test case, we compute inspirals caused by a simple drag force, mimicking motion in the presence of gas.We verify that both methods give the same results for this simple force. We find that drag generally causes eccentricity to increase throughout the inspiral. This is a relativistic effect qualitatively opposite to what is seen in gravitational-radiation-driven inspirals, and similar to what others have observed in hydrodynamic simulations of gaseous binaries. We provide an analytic explanation by deriving the leading order relativistic correction to the Newtonian dynamics. If observed, an increasing eccentricity would thus provide clear evidence that the inspiral was occurring in a nonvacuum environment. Our two methods are especially useful for evolving orbits in the adiabatic regime. Both use the method of osculating orbits, in which each point on the orbit is characterized by the parameters of the geodesic with the same instantaneous position and velocity. Both methods describe the orbit in terms of the geodesic energy, axial angular momentum, Carter constant, azimuthal phase, and two angular variables that increase monotonically and are relativistic generalizations of the eccentric anomaly. The two methods differ in their treatment of the orbital phases and the representation of the force. In the first method, the geodesic phase and phase constant are evolved together as a single orbital phase parameter, and the force is expressed in terms of its components on the Kinnersley orthonormal tetrad. In the second method, the phase constants of the geodesic motion are evolved separately and the force is expressed in terms of its Boyer-Lindquist components. This second approach is a direct generalization of earlier work by Pound and Poisson [A. Pound and E. Poisson, Phys. Rev. D 77, 044013 (2008).] for planar forces in a Schwarzschild background

Verifying black hole orbits with gravitational spectroscopy

Gravitational waves from test masses bound to geodesic orbits of rotating black holes are simulated, using Teukolsky's black hole perturbation formalism, for about ten thousand generic orbital configurations. Each binary radiates power exclusively in modes with frequencies that are integer-linear-combinations of the orbit's three fundamental frequencies. The following general spectral properties are found with a survey of orbits: (i) 99% of the radiated power is typically carried by a few hundred modes, and at most by about a thousand modes, (ii) the dominant frequencies can be grouped into a small number of families defined by fixing two of the three integer frequency multipliers, and (iii) the specifics of these trends can be qualitatively inferred from the geometry of the orbit under consideration. Detections using triperiodic analytic templates modeled on these general properties would constitute a verification of radiation from an adiabatic sequence of black hole orbits and would recover the evolution of the fundamental orbital frequencies. In an analogy with ordinary spectroscopy, this would compare to observing the Bohr model's atomic hydrogen spectrum without being able to rule out alternative atomic theories or nuclei. The suitability of such a detection technique is demonstrated using snapshots computed at 12-hour intervals throughout the last three years before merger of a kludged inspiral. Because of circularization, the number of excited modes decreases as the binary evolves. A hypothetical detection algorithm that tracks mode families dominating the first 12 hours of the inspiral would capture 98% of the total power over the remaining three years.Comment: 18 pages, expanded section on detection algorithms and made minor edits. Final published versio

Towards adiabatic waveforms for inspiral into Kerr black holes: II. Dynamical sources and generic orbits

This is the second in a series of papers whose aim is to generate ``adiabatic'' gravitational waveforms from the inspiral of stellar-mass compact objects into massive black holes. In earlier work, we presented an accurate (2+1)D finite-difference time-domain code to solve the Teukolsky equation, which evolves curvature perturbations near rotating (Kerr) black holes. The key new ingredient there was a simple but accurate model of the singular source term based on a discrete representation of the Dirac-delta function and its derivatives. Our earlier work was intended as a proof of concept, using simple circular, equatorial geodesic orbits as a testbed. Such a source is effectively static, in that the smaller body remains at the same coordinate radius and orbital inclination over an orbit. (It of course moves through axial angle, but we separate that degree of freedom from the problem. Our numerical grid has only radial, polar, and time coordinates.) We now extend the time-domain code so that it can accommodate dynamic sources that move on a variety of physically interesting world lines. We validate the code with extensive comparison to frequency-domain waveforms for cases in which the source moves along generic (inclined and eccentric) bound geodesic orbits. We also demonstrate the ability of the time-domain code to accommodate sources moving on interesting non-geodesic worldlines. We do this by computing the waveform produced by a test mass following a ``kludged'' inspiral trajectory, made of bound geodesic segments driven toward merger by an approximate radiation loss formula.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by Phys. Rev.

Geometrical locus of massive test particle orbits in the space of physical parameters in Kerr space-time

Gravitational radiation of binary systems can be studied by using the adiabatic approximation in General Relativity. In this approach a small astrophysical object follows a trajectory consisting of a chained series of bounded geodesics (orbits) in the outer region of a Kerr Black Hole, representing the space time created by a bigger object. In our paper we study the entire class of orbits, both of constant radius (spherical orbits), as well as non-null eccentricity orbits, showing a number of properties on the physical parameters and trajectories. The main result is the determination of the geometrical locus of all the orbits in the space of physical parameters in Kerr space-time. This becomes a powerful tool to know if different orbits can be connected by a continuous change of their physical parameters. A discussion on the influence of different values of the angular momentum of the hole is given. Main results have been obtained by analytical methods.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figure

Forced motion near black holes

We present two methods for integrating forced geodesic equations in the Kerr spacetime, which can accommodate arbitrary forces. As a test case, we compute inspirals under a simple drag force, mimicking the presence of gas. We verify that both methods give the same results for this simple force. We find that drag generally causes eccentricity to increase throughout the inspiral. This is a relativistic effect qualitatively opposite to what is seen in gravitational-radiation-driven inspirals, and similar to what is observed in hydrodynamic simulations of gaseous binaries. We provide an analytic explanation by deriving the leading order relativistic correction to the Newtonian dynamics. If observed, an increasing eccentricity would provide clear evidence that the inspiral was occurring in a non-vacuum environment. Our two methods are especially useful for evolving orbits in the adiabatic regime. Both use the method of osculating orbits, in which each point on the orbit is characterized by the parameters of the geodesic with the same instantaneous position and velocity. Both methods describe the orbit in terms of the geodesic energy, axial angular momentum, Carter constant, azimuthal phase, and two angular variables that increase monotonically and are relativistic generalizations of the eccentric anomaly. The two methods differ in their treatment of the orbital phases and the representation of the force. In one method the geodesic phase and phase constant are evolved together as a single orbital phase parameter, and the force is expressed in terms of its components on the Kinnersley orthonormal tetrad. In the second method, the phase constants of the geodesic motion are evolved separately and the force is expressed in terms of its Boyer-Lindquist components. This second approach is a generalization of earlier work by Pound and Poisson for planar forces in a Schwarzschild background.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D; v2 has minor changes for consistency with published version, plus a new section discussing the relative advantages of the two approache

Gravitational radiation reaction and inspiral waveforms in the adiabatic limit

We describe progress evolving an important limit of binary orbits in general relativity, that of a stellar mass compact object gradually spiraling into a much larger, massive black hole. These systems are of great interest for gravitational wave observations. We have developed tools to compute for the first time the radiated fluxes of energy and angular momentum, as well as instantaneous snapshot waveforms, for generic geodesic orbits. For special classes of orbits, we compute the orbital evolution and waveforms for the complete inspiral by imposing global conservation of energy and angular momentum. For fully generic orbits, inspirals and waveforms can be obtained by augmenting our approach with a prescription for the self force in the adiabatic limit derived by Mino. The resulting waveforms should be sufficiently accurate to be used in future gravitational-wave searches.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let