2014/04/07 by Andrea Taracchini, Alessandra Buonanno, Gaurav Khanna +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Amplitude #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Black hole (networking) #Condensed matter physics #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Gravitational wave #Mass ratio #Physics #Precession #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum mechanics #Quasinormal mode #Rotating black hole #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spins #Waveform #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.90.084025
published as Phys. Rev. D 90, 084025 (2014) · 20 pages, 15 figures
arxiv created 2014/04/07 · openalex publication_date 2014/10/15 · arxiv updated 2014/10/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We numerically solve the Teukolsky equation in the time domain to obtain the gravitational-wave emission of a small mass inspiraling and plunging into the equatorial plane of a Kerr black hole. We account for the dissipation of orbital energy using the Teukolsky frequency-domain gravitational-wave fluxes for circular, equatorial orbits, down to the light-ring. We consider Kerr spins \ensuremath-0.99\ensuremath≤q\ensuremath≤0.99, and compute the inspiral-merger-ringdown (2,2), (2,1), (3,3), (3,2), (4,4), and (5,5) modes. We study the large-spin regime, and find a great simplicity in the merger waveforms, thanks to the extremely circular character of the plunging orbits. We also quantitatively examine the mixing of quasinormal modes during the ringdown, which induces complicated amplitude and frequency modulations in the waveforms. Finally, we explain how the study of small mass-ratio black-hole binaries helps extending effective-one-body models for comparable-mass, spinning black-hole binaries to any mass ratio and spin magnitude.