1998/05/29 by Daniel Kennefick · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.58.064012
published as Phys.Rev. D58 (1998) 064012 · Revtex, 20 pages including three figures
arxiv created 1998/05/29 · openalex publication_date 1998/08/11 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We examine the evolution, under gravitational radiation reaction, of slightly eccentric equatorial orbits of point particles around Kerr black holes. Our method involves numerical integration of the Sasaki-Nakamura equation. It is discovered that such orbits decrease in eccentricity throughout most of the inspiral, until shortly before the innermost stable circular orbit, when a critical radius rcrit is reached beyond which the inspiralling orbits increase in eccentricity. It is shown that the number of orbits remaining in this last (eccentricity increasing) phase of the inspiral is an order of magnitude less for prograde orbits around rapidly spinning black holes than for retrograde orbits. In the extreme limit of a Kerr black hole with spin parameter a=1, this critical radius descends into the ``throat'' of the black hole.