Gravitational Waves from a Particle in Circular Orbits around a Schwarzschild Black Hole to the 22nd Post-Newtonian Order

We extend our previous results of the 14th post-Newtonian (PN) order expansion of gravitational waves for a test particle in circular orbits around a Schwarzschild black hole to the 22PN order, i.e. $v^{44}$ beyond the leading Newtonian approximation where $v$ is the orbital velocity of a test particle. Comparing our 22PN formula for the energy flux with high precision numerical results, we find that the relative error of the 22PN flux at the innermost stable circular orbit is about $10^{-5}$. We also estimate the phase difference between the 22PN waveforms and numerical waveforms after a two-year inspiral. We find that the dephase is about $10^{-9}$ for $\mu/M=10^{-4}$ and $10^{-2}$ for $\mu/M=10^{-5}$ where $\mu$ is the mass of the compact object and $M$ the mass of the central supermassive black hole. Finally, we construct a hybrid formula of the energy flux by supplementing the 4PN formula of the energy flux for circular and equatorial orbits around a Kerr black hole with all the present 22PN terms for the case of a Schwarzschild black hole. Comparing the hybrid formula with the the full numerical results, we examine the performance of the hybrid formula for the case of Kerr black hole.Comment: 22 pages, additional datafiles are available at <a href="http://www2.yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~misao/BHPC/calcs.html">this http URL</a

Gravitational radiation for extreme mass ratio inspirals to the 14th post-Newtonian order

We derive gravitational waveforms needed to compute the 14th post-Newtonian (14PN) order energy flux for a particle in circular orbit around a Schwarzschild black hole, i.e. $v^{28}$ beyond the leading Newtonian approximation where $v$ is the orbital velocity of a test particle. We investigate the convergence of the energy flux in the PN expansion and suggest a fitting formula which can be used to extract unknown higher order PN coefficients from accurate numerical data for more general orbits around a Kerr black hole. The phase difference between the 14PN waveforms and numerical waveforms after two years inspiral is shown to be about $10^{-7}$ for $\mu/M=10^{-4}$ and $10^{-3}$ for $\mu/M=10^{-5}$ where $\mu$ is the mass of a compact object and $M$ the mass of the central supermassive black hole. In first order black hole perturbation theory, for extreme mass ratio inspirals which are one of the main targets of Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, the 14PN expressions will lead to the data analysis accuracies comparable to the ones resulting from high precision numerical waveforms.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Ultralight scalars and resonances in black-hole physics

Ultralight degrees of freedom coupled to matter lead to resonances, which can be excited when the Compton wavelength of the field equals a dynamical scale in the problem. For binaries composed of a star orbiting a supermassive black hole, these resonances lead to a smoking-gun effect: a periastron distance which {\it stalls}, even in the presence of gravitational-wave dissipation. This effect, also called a {\it floating orbit}, occurs for generic equatorial but eccentric orbits and we argue that finite-size effects are not enough to suppress it.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Spherical harmonic modes of 5.5 post-Newtonian gravitational wave polarizations and associated factorized resummed waveforms for a particle in circular orbit around a Schwarzschild black hol

Recent breakthroughs in numerical relativity enable one to examine the validity of the post-Newtonian expansion in the late stages of inspiral. For the comparison between post-Newtonian (PN) expansion and numerical simulations, the waveforms in terms of the spin-weighted spherical harmonics are more useful than the plus and cross polarizations, which are used for data analysis of gravitational waves. Factorized resummed waveforms achieve better agreement with numerical results than the conventional Taylor expanded post-Newtonian waveforms. In this paper, we revisit the post-Newtonian expansion of gravitational waves for a test-particle of mass \m in circular orbit of radius $r_0$ around a Schwarzschild black hole of mass $M$ and derive the spherical harmonic components associated with the gravitational wave polarizations up to order $v^{11}$ beyond Newtonian. Using the more accurate $h_{\ell m}$'s computed in this work, we provide the more complete set of associated $\rho_{\ell m}$'s and $\delta_{\ell m}$'s that form important bricks in the factorized resummation of waveforms with potential applications for the construction of further improved waveforms for prototypical compact binary sources in the future. We also provide ready-to-use expressions of the 5.5PN gravitational waves polarizations $h_+$ and $h_\times$ in the test-particle limit for gravitational wave data analysis applications. Additionally, we provide closed analytical expressions for 2.5PN $h_{\ell m}$, 2PN $\rho_{\ell m}$ and 3PN $\delta_{\ell m}$, for general multipolar orders $\ell$ and $m$ in the test-particle limit. Finally, we also examine the implications of the present analysis for compact binary sources in Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.Comment: 42 pages, 2 figures, match with accepted version by PR

New Numerical Methods to Evaluate Homogeneous Solutions of the Teukolsky Equation II. Solutions of the Continued Fraction Equation

We investigate the solution of the continued fraction equation by which we determine "the renormalized angular momentum parameter", $\nu$, in the formalism developed by Leaver and Mano, Suzuki, and Takasugi. In this formalism, we describe the homogeneous solutions of the radial Teukolsky equation, which is the basic equation of the black hole perturbation formalism. We find that, contrary to the assumption made in previous works, the solution, $\nu$, becomes complex valued as $\omega$ (the angular frequency) becomes large for each $l$ and $m$ (the degree and order of the spin-weighted spheroidal harmonics). We compare the power radiated by gravitational waves from a particle in a circular orbit in the equatorial plane around a Kerr black hole in two ways, one using the Mano-Suzuki-Takasugi formalism with complex $\nu$ and the other using a direct numerical integration method. We find that the two methods produce consistent results. These facts prove the validity of using complex solutions to determine the homogeneous solutions of the Teukolsky equation

Extreme mass ratio inspirals on the equatorial plane in the adiabatic order

We compute gravitational waves from inspiraling stellar-mass compact objects on the equatorial plane of a massive spinning black hole (BH). Our inspiral orbits are computed by taking into account the adiabatic change of orbital parameters due to gravitational radiation in the lowest order in mass ratio. We employ an interpolation method to compute the adiabatic change at arbitrary points inside the region of orbital parameter space computed in advance. Using the obtained inspiral orbits and associated gravitational waves, we compute power spectra of gravitational waves and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for several values of the BH spin, the masses of the binary, and the initial orbital eccentricity during a hypothetical three-yrs LISA observation before final plunge. We find that (i) the SNR increases as the BH spin and the mass of the compact object increase for the BH mass M \agt 10^6M_\odot, (ii) the SNR has a maximum for $M \approx 10^6M_\odot$, and (iii) the SNR increases as the initial eccentricity increases for $M=10^6M_\odot$. We also show that incorporating the contribution from the higher multipole modes of gravitational waves is crucial for enhancing the detection rate.Comment: 18 pages, 18 figures, published in Phys. Rev. D, supplementary data files available at https://sites.google.com/view/bhpc1996/hom