Spin effects on gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries at second post-Newtonian order

We calculate the gravitational waveform for spinning, precessing compact binary inspirals through second post-Newtonian order in the amplitude. When spins are collinear with the orbital angular momentum and the orbits are quasi-circular, we further provide explicit expressions for the gravitational-wave polarizations and the decomposition into spin-weighted spherical-harmonic modes. Knowledge of the second post-Newtonian spin terms in the waveform could be used to improve the physical content of analytical templates for data analysis of compact binary inspirals and for more accurate comparisons with numerical-relativity simulations.Comment: 15 pages, expressions available in mathematica format upon reques

Gravitational-wave tail effects to quartic non-linear order

Gravitational-wave tails are due to the backscattering of linear waves onto the space-time curvature generated by the total mass of the matter source. The dominant tails correspond to quadratic non-linear interactions and arise at the one-and-a-half post-Newtonian (1.5PN) order in the gravitational waveform. The "tails-of-tails", which are cubic non-linear effects appearing at the 3PN order in the waveform, are also known. We derive here higher non-linear tail effects, namely those associated with quartic non-linear interactions or "tails-of-tails-of-tails", which are shown to arise at the 4.5PN order. As an application, we obtain at that order the complete coefficient in the total gravitational-wave energy flux of compact binary systems moving on circular orbits. Our result perfectly agrees with black-hole perturbation calculations in the limit of extreme mass ratio of the two compact objects.Comment: 32 pages, no figure, matches with published versio

Dynamics of extended bodies in a Kerr spacetime with spin-induced quadrupole tensor

The features of equatorial motion of an extended body in Kerr spacetime are investigated in the framework of the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Dixon model. The body is assumed to stay at quasi-equilibrium and respond instantly to external perturbations. Besides the mass, it is completely determined by its spin, the multipolar expansion being truncated at the quadrupole order, with a spin-induced quadrupole tensor. The study of the radial effective potential allows to analytically determine the ISCO shift due to spin and the associated frequency of the last circular orbit.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, revtex styl

Third post-Newtonian spin-orbit effect in the gravitational radiation flux of compact binaries

Gravitational waves contain tail effects that are due to the backscattering of linear waves in the curved space-time geometry around the source. The knowledge as well as the accuracy of the two-body inspiraling post-Newtonian (PN) dynamics and of the gravitational-wave signal has been recently improved, notably by computing the spin-orbit (SO) terms induced by tail effects in the gravitational-wave energy flux at the 3PN order. Here we sketch this derivation, which yields the phasing formula including SO tail effects through the same 3PN order. Those results can be employed to improve the accuracy of analytical templates aimed at describing the whole process of inspiral, merger, and ringdown.Comment: 6 pages; proceeding of the 9th LISA Symposium, Pari

High-order half-integral conservative post-Newtonian coefficients in the redshift factor of black hole binaries

The post-Newtonian approximation is still the most widely used approach to obtaining explicit solutions in general relativity, especially for the relativistic two-body problem with arbitrary mass ratio. Within many of its applications, it is often required to use a regularization procedure. Though frequently misunderstood, the regularization is essential for waveform generation without reference to the internal structure of orbiting bodies. In recent years, direct comparison with the self-force approach, constructed specifically for highly relativistic particles in the extreme mass ratio limit, has enabled preliminary confirmation of the foundations of both computational methods, including their very independent regularization procedures, with high numerical precision. In this paper, we build upon earlier work to carry this comparison still further, by examining next-to-next-to-leading order contributions beyond the half integral 5.5PN conservative effect, which arise from terms to cubic and higher orders in the metric and its multipole moments, thus extending scrutiny of the post-Newtonian methods to one of the highest orders yet achieved. We do this by explicitly constructing tail-of-tail terms at 6.5PN and 7.5PN order, computing the redshift factor for compact binaries in the small mass ratio limit, and comparing directly with numerically and analytically computed terms in the self-force approach, obtained using solutions for metric perturbations in the Schwarzschild space-time, and a combination of exact series representations possibly with more typical PN expansions. While self-force results may be relativistic but with restricted mass ratio, our methods, valid primarily in the weak-field slowly-moving regime, are nevertheless in principle applicable for arbitrary mass ratios.Comment: 33 pages, no figure; minor correction

Half-integral conservative post-Newtonian approximations in the redshift factor of black hole binaries

Recent perturbative self-force computations (Shah, Friedman & Whiting, submitted to Phys. Rev. {\bf D}, arXiv:1312.1952 [gr-qc]), both numerical and analytical, have determined that half-integral post-Newtonian terms arise in the conservative dynamics of black-hole binaries moving on exactly circular orbits. We look at the possible origin of these terms within the post-Newtonian approximation, find that they essentially originate from non-linear "tail-of-tail" integrals and show that, as demonstrated in the previous paper, their first occurrence is at the 5.5PN order. The post-Newtonian method we use is based on a multipolar-post-Minkowskian treatment of the field outside a general matter source, which is re-expanded in the near zone and extended inside the source thanks to a matching argument. Applying the formula obtained for generic sources to compact binaries, we obtain the redshift factor of circular black hole binaries (without spins) at 5.5PN order in the extreme mass ratio limit. Our result fully agrees with the determination of the 5.5PN coefficient by means of perturbative self-force computations reported in the previously cited paper.Comment: 18 pages, no figures, references updated and minor corrections include

Next-to-next-to-leading order spin-orbit effects in the equations of motion of compact binary systems

We compute next-to-next-to-leading order spin contributions to the post-Newtonian equations of motion for binaries of compact objects, such as black holes or neutron stars. For maximally spinning black holes, those contributions are of third-and-a-half post-Newtonian (3.5PN) order, improving our knowledge of the equations of motion, already known for non-spinning objects up to this order. Building on previous work, we represent the rotation of the two bodies using a pole-dipole matter stress-energy tensor, and iterate Einstein's field equations for a set of potentials parametrizing the metric in harmonic coordinates. Checks of the result include the existence of a conserved energy, the approximate global Lorentz invariance of the equations of motion in harmonic coordinates, and the recovery of the motion of a spinning object on a Kerr background in the test-mass limit. We verified the existence of a contact transformation, together with a redefinition of the spin variables that makes our result equivalent to a previously published reduced Hamiltonian, obtained from the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) formalism.Comment: 38 pages, minor changes to match the published versio