Repeated faint quasinormal bursts in extreme-mass-ratio inspiral waveforms: Evidence from frequency-domain scalar self-force calculations on generic Kerr orbits

Abstract

We report development of a code to calculate the scalar self-force on a scalar-charged particle moving on generic bound orbits in the Kerr spacetime. The scalar self-force model allows rapid development of computational techniques relevant to generic gravitational extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs). Our frequency-domain calculations are made with arbitrary numerical precision code written in \textsc{Mathematica}. We extend spectral source integration techniques to the Kerr spacetime, increasing computational efficiency. We model orbits with nearly arbitrary inclinations $0\le \iota <\pi /2$ and eccentricities up to $e\lesssim 0.8$. This effort extends earlier work by Warburton and Barack where motion was restricted to the equatorial plane or to inclined spherical orbits. Consistent with a recent discovery by Thornburg and Wardell \cite{ThorWard17} in time-domain calculations, we observe self-force oscillations during the radially-outbound portion of highly eccentric orbits around a rapidly rotating black hole. As noted previously, these oscillations reflect coupling into the self-force by quasinormal modes excited during pericenter passage. Our results confirm the effect with a frequency-domain code. \emph{More importantly, we find that quasinormal bursts (QNBs) appear directly in the waveform following each periastron passage.} These faint bursts are shown to be a superposition of the least-damped overtone (i.e., fundamental) of at least four ($l=m\le 4$) quasinormal modes. Our results suggest that QNBs should appear in gravitational waveforms, and thus provide a gauge-invariant signal. Potentially observable in high signal-to-noise ratio EMRIs, QNBs would provide high-frequency components to the parameter estimation problem that would complement low-frequency elements of the waveform.

28 pages, 11 figures, 5 tables; Updated to reflect published version