Nature Abhors a Circle

Abstract

The loss of orbital energy and angular momentum to gravitational waves produced in a binary inspiral forces the orbital eccentricity to adiabatically evolve and oscillate. For comparable-mass binaries, the osculating eccentricity is thought to decrease monotonically in the inspiral. Contrary to this, we here show that, once the osculating eccentricity is small enough, radiation reaction forces it to grow secularly before the binary reaches the last stable orbit. We explore this behavior, its physical interpretation and consequences, and its potential impact on future gravitational wave observations.

7 pages, 5 figures. Updated to reflect the published version

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• The Gravitational-Wave Physics II: Progress
• Gravitational-wave amplitudes for compact binaries in eccentric orbits at the third post-Newtonian order: Tail contributions and post-adiabatic corrections
• Extreme mass-ratio inspiral and waveforms for a spinning body into a Kerr black hole via osculating geodesics and near-identity transformations
• Self-forced inspirals with spin-orbit precession
• Orbital Eccentricity and Spin-Orbit Misalignment Are Evidence that Neutron Star-Black Hole Mergers Form through Triple Star Evolution
• Non-adiabatic dynamics of eccentric black-hole binaries in post-Newtonian theory