Extreme mass-ratio inspirals in the effective-one-body approach: Quasicircular, equatorial orbits around a spinning black hole

Abstract

We construct effective-one-body waveform models suitable for data analysis with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna for extreme mass-ratio inspirals in quasicircular, equatorial orbits about a spinning supermassive black hole. The accuracy of our model is established through comparisons against frequency-domain, Teukolsky-based waveforms in the radiative approximation. The calibration of eight high-order post-Newtonian parameters in the energy flux suffices to obtain a phase and fractional amplitude agreement of better than 1 rad and 1%, respectively, over a period between 2 and 6 months depending on the system considered. This agreement translates into matches higher than 97% over a period between 4 and 9 months, depending on the system. Better agreements can be obtained if a larger number of calibration parameters are included. Higher-order mass-ratio terms in the effective-one-body Hamiltonian and radiation reaction introduce phase corrections of at most 30 rad in a 1 yr evolution. These corrections are usually 1 order of magnitude larger than those introduced by the spin of the small object in a 1 yr evolution. These results suggest that the effective-one-body approach for extreme mass-ratio inspirals is a good compromise between accuracy and computational price for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna data-analysis purposes.