A taxonomy of black-hole binary spin precession and nutation

Abstract

Binary black holes with misaligned spins will generically induce both precession and nutation of the orbital angular momentum $\mathbf{L}$ about the total angular momentum $\mathbf{J}$. These phenomena modulate the phase and amplitude of the gravitational waves emitted as the binary inspirals to merger. We introduce a "taxonomy" of binary black-hole spin precession that encompasses all the known phenomenology, then present five new phenomenological parameters that describe generic precession and constitute potential building blocks for future gravitational waveform models. These are the precession amplitude $⟨{\theta }_L⟩$, the precession frequency $⟨{\Omega }_L⟩$, the nutation amplitude $\Delta {\theta }_L$, the nutation frequency $\omega$, and the precession-frequency variation $\Delta {\Omega }_L$. We investigate the evolution of these five parameters during the inspiral and explore their statistical properties for sources with isotropic spins. In particular, we find that nutation of $\mathbf{L}$ is most prominent for binaries with high spins ($\chi \gtrsim 0.5$) and moderate mass ratios ($q\sim 0.6$).

arXiv comment14 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. Accepted in PRD

References in corpus (55)

• GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs
• Gravitational Waves from Mergin Compact Binaries: How Accurately Can One Extract the Binary's Parameters from the Inspiral Waveform?
• Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred from the First and Second Observing Runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• Coalescing binary systems of compact objects to (post)$^{5/2}-Newtonian order. V. Spin Effects
• Coalescence of Two Spinning Black Holes: An Effective One-Body Approach
• Binary Black Hole Mergers from Globular Clusters: Masses, Merger Rates, and the Impact of Stellar Evolution
• The Evolution of Compact Binary Star Systems
• Towards models of gravitational waveforms from generic binaries II: Modelling precession effects with a single effective precession parameter
• Spin effects in the inspiral of coalescing compact binaries
• New binary black hole mergers in the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• Cosmological black hole spin evolution by mergers and accretion
• Multipolar Effective-One-Body Waveforms for Precessing Binary Black Holes: Construction and Validation
• Analysis of spin precession in binary black hole systems including quadrupole-monopole interaction
• One Channel to Rule Them All? Constraining the Origins of Binary Black Holes using Multiple Formation Pathways
• Alignment of the spins of supermassive black holes prior to coalescence
• Distinguishing Spin-Aligned and Isotropic Black Hole Populations With Gravitational Waves
• Surrogate model of hybridized numerical relativity binary black hole waveforms
• 2-OGC: Open Gravitational-wave Catalog of binary mergers from analysis of public Advanced LIGO and Virgo data
• Spin orientations of merging black holes formed from the evolution of stellar binaries
• 1-OGC: The first open gravitational-wave catalog of binary mergers from analysis of public Advanced LIGO data
• Compact Binary Coalescences in the Band of Ground-based Gravitational-Wave Detectors
• Hierarchical analysis of gravitational-wave measurements of binary black hole spin-orbit misalignments
• Relativistic Binaries in Globular Clusters
• Determining the population properties of spinning black holes
• Linking the spin evolution of massive black holes to galaxy kinematics
• Use of gravitational waves to probe the formation channels of compact binaries
• Distinguishing Between Formation Channels for Binary Black Holes with LISA
• eLISA eccentricity measurements as tracers of binary black hole formation
• Using spin to understand the formation of LIGO's black holes
• Resonant-plane locking and spin alignment in stellar-mass black-hole binaries: a diagnostic of compact-binary formation
• Multi-timescale analysis of phase transitions in precessing black-hole binaries
• Spin-Orbit Resonance and the Evolution of Compact Binary Systems
• Constraining stellar binary black hole formation scenarios with eLISA eccentricity measurements
• Effective potentials and morphological transitions for binary black-hole spin precession
• Gravitational-wave astrophysics with effective-spin measurements: asymmetries and selection biases
• The Low Effective Spin of Binary Black Holes and Implications for Individual Gravitational-Wave Events
• Explaining LIGO's observations via isolated binary evolution with natal kicks
• PRECESSION: Dynamics of spinning black-hole binaries with python
• A generalized precession parameter ${\chi }_{\mathrm{p}}$ to interpret gravitational-wave data
• Constraining the fraction of binary black holes formed in isolation and young star clusters with gravitational-wave data
• Spin alignment and differential accretion in merging black hole binaries
• Precessional instability in binary black holes with aligned spins
• When will we observe binary black holes precessing?
• Spin flips in generic black hole binaries
• Bounds on Expected Black Hole Spins in Inspiraling Binaries
• Pathways for producing binary black holes with large misaligned spins in the isolated formation channel
• Unstable flip-flopping spinning binary black holes
• Integrability of eccentric, spinning black hole binaries up to second post-Newtonian order
• Nutational resonances, transitional precession, and precession-averaged evolution in binary black-hole systems
• On the equal-mass limit of precessing black-hole binaries
• Detection and characterization of spin-orbit resonances in the advanced gravitational wave detectors era
• Endpoint of the up-down instability in precessing binary black holes
• Wide nutation: binary black-hole spins repeatedly oscillating from full alignment to full anti-alignment
• Up-down instability of binary black holes in numerical relativity

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Removing degeneracy and multimodality in gravitational wave source parameters
• Systematic biases due to waveform mismodeling in parametrized post-Einsteinian tests of general relativity: The impact of neglecting spin precession and higher modes
• Efficient multi-timescale dynamics of precessing black-hole binaries
• Accurate and Efficient Waveform Model for Precessing Binary Black Holes
• GRMHD study of accreting massive black hole binaries in astrophysical environment: a review
• Constraining black-hole binary spin precession and nutation with sequential prior conditioning
• Inferring Binary Properties from Gravitational Wave Signals
• Merging Black Holes: Assessing the Performance of Two Analytic Gravitational Waves Models
• Mass and spin coevolution of black holes inspiralling through dark matter
• Signatures of spin precession and nutation in isolated black-hole binaries
• Characterization of merging black holes with two precessing spins