We derive an analytic expression for the energy spectrum of gravitational
waves from a parabolic Keplerian binary by taking the limit of the Peters and
Matthews spectrum for eccentric orbits. This demonstrates that the location of
the peak of the energy spectrum depends primarily on the orbital periapse
rather than the eccentricity. We compare this weak-field result to strong-field
calculations and find it is reasonably accurate (~10%) provided that the
azimuthal and radial orbital frequencies do not differ by more than ~10%. For
equatorial orbits in the Kerr spacetime, this corresponds to periapse radii of
rp > 20M. These results can be used to model radiation bursts from compact
objects on highly eccentric orbits about massive black holes in the local
Universe, which could be detected by LISA.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Minor changes to match published version; figure
1 corrected; references adde
