Effect of massive perturbers on extreme mass-ratio inspiral waveforms
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Yunes-2011-Effect of massive pe.pdf
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Author(s)
Yunes, Nicolas
Miller, M. Coleman
Thornburg, Jonathan
Date Issued
February 2011
Journal
Physical review D
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Yunes, Nicolás, M. Coleman Miller, and Jonathan Thornburg. “Effect of massive perturbers on extreme mass-ratio inspiral waveforms.” Physical Review D 83.4 (2011) : n. pag. © 2011 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Extreme mass-ratio inspirals, in which a stellar-mass object orbits a supermassive black hole, are prime sources for space-based gravitational wave detectors because they will facilitate tests of strong gravity and probe the spacetime around rotating compact objects. In the last few years of such inspirals, the total phase is in the millions of radians and details of the waveforms are sensitive to small perturbations. We show that one potentially detectable perturbation is the presence of a second supermassive black hole within a few tenths of a parsec. The acceleration produced by the perturber on the extreme mass-ratio system produces a steady drift that causes the waveform to deviate systematically from that of an isolated system. If the perturber is a few tenths of a parsec from the extreme mass-ratio system (plausible in as many as a few percent of cases) higher derivatives of motion might also be detectable. In that case, the mass and distance of the perturber can be derived independently, which would allow a new probe of merger dynamics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.83.044030
