Tidal heating as a discriminator for horizons in extreme mass ratio inspirals
Author(s)
Datta, Sayak; Brito, Richard; Bose, Sukanta; Pani, Paolo; Hughes, Scott A
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The defining feature of a classical black hole is being a perfect absorber. Any evidence showing otherwise would indicate a departure from the standard black-hole picture. Energy and angular momentum absorption by the horizon of a black hole is responsible for tidal heating in a binary. This effect is particularly important in the latest stages of an extreme mass ratio inspiral around a spinning supermassive object, one of the main targets of the future LISA mission. We study how this effect can be used to probe the nature of supermassive objects in a model independent way. We compute the orbital dephasing and the gravitational-wave signal emitted by a point particle in circular, equatorial motion around a spinning supermassive object to the leading order in the mass ratio. Absence of absorption by the central object can affect the gravitational-wave signal dramatically, especially at high spin. This effect will make it possible to put an unparalleled upper bound on the reflectivity of exotic compact objects, at the level of O(0.01)%. This stringent bound would exclude the possibility of observing echoes in the ringdown of a supermassive binary merger.
Date issued
2020-02Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics; MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space ResearchJournal
Physical Review D
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Citation
Datta, Sayak, et al. "Tidal heating as a discriminator for horizons in extreme mass ratio inspirals." Physical Review D, 101, 4, (February 2020): 044004. © 2020 American Physical Society
Version: Final published version
ISSN
2470-0010
2470-0029