Accuracy Requirements: Assessing the Importance of First Post-Adiabatic Terms for Small-Mass-Ratio Binaries

2023/10/13 by Ollie Burke, Burke, Ollie, Gabriel Andres Piovano +16 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2310.08927

openalex publication_date 2023/10/13 · openalex created_date 2023/10/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We investigate the impact of post-adiabatic (1PA) terms on parameter estimation for extreme and intermediate mass-ratio inspirals using state-of-the-art waveform models. Our analysis is the first to employ Bayesian inference to assess systematic errors for 1PA waveforms. We find that neglecting 1PA terms introduces significant biases for the (small) mass ratio ε\gtrsim 10^-5 for quasi circular orbits in Schwarzschild spacetime, which can be mitigated with resummed 3PN expressions at 1PA order. Moreover, we show that the secondary spin is strongly correlated with the other intrinsic parameters, and it can not be constrained for ε\lesssim 10^-5. Finally, we highlight the need for addressing eccentric waveform systematics in the small-mass-ratio regime, as they yield stronger biases than the circular limit in both intrinsic and extrinsic parameters.

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