Extreme mass ratio inspiral rates: dependence on the massive black hole mass

Abstract

We study the rate at which stars spiral into a massive black hole (MBH) due to the emission of gravitational waves (GWs), as a function of the mass M of the MBH. In the context of our model, it is shown analytically that the rate approximately depends on the MBH mass as M^{-1/4}. Numerical simulations confirm this result, and show that for all MBH masses, the event rate is highest for stellar black holes, followed by white dwarfs, and lowest for neutron stars. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is expected to see hundreds of these extreme mass ratio inspirals per year. Since the event rate derived here formally diverges as M->0, the model presented here cannot hold for MBHs of masses that are too low, and we discuss what the limitations of the model are.

Accepted to CQG, special LISA issue

References in corpus (7)

• Gemini and Hubble Space Telescope Evidence for an Intermediate Mass Black Hole in omega Centauri
• Stellar remnants in galactic nuclei: mass segregation
• Resonant relaxation near a massive black hole: the dependence on eccentricity
• Gravitational wave bursts from the Galactic massive black hole
• Observing white dwarfs orbiting massive black holes in the gravitational wave and electro-magnetic window
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Cited by in corpus (7)

• LISA extreme-mass-ratio inspiral events as probes of the black hole mass function
• Probing black holes at low redshift using LISA EMRI observations
• Binary dynamics near a massive black hole
• Importance of transient resonances in extreme-mass-ratio inspirals
• The Combined Effects of Two-Body Relaxation Processes and the Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Mechanism on the EMRI Rate
• Constraining properties of the black hole population using LISA
• Dynamics around supermassive black holes: Extreme mass-ratio inspirals as gravitational-wave sources