Strategies for observing extreme mass ratio inspirals

Abstract

I review the status of research, conducted by a variety of independent groups, aimed at the eventual observation of Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs) with gravitational wave detectors. EMRIs are binary systems in which one of the objects is much more massive than the other, and which are in a state of dynamical evolution that is dominated by the effects of gravitational radiation. Although these systems are highly relativistic, with the smaller object moving relative to the larger at nearly light-speed, they are well described by perturbative calculations which exploit the mass ratio as a natural small parameter. I review the use of such approximations to generate waveforms needed by data analysis algorithms for observation. I also briefly review the status of developing the data analysis algorithms themselves. Although this article is almost entirely a review of previous work, it includes (as an appendix) a new analytical estimate for the time over which the influence of radiation on the binary itself is observationally negligible.

17 pages, to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravity, minor edits to first version along with a revamped appendix and figure 3. Final published version

References in corpus (7)

• "Kludge" gravitational waveforms for a test-body orbiting a Kerr black hole
• Gravitational wave snapshots of generic extreme mass ratio inspirals
• Gravitational radiation reaction and inspiral waveforms in the adiabatic limit
• Computing inspirals in Kerr in the adiabatic regime. I. The scalar case
• The adiabatic evolution of orbital parameters in the Kerr spacetime
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Cited by in corpus (25)

• Gravitational self force in extreme mass-ratio inspirals
• Two timescale analysis of extreme mass ratio inspirals in Kerr. I. Orbital Motion
• A consequence of the gravitational self-force for circular orbits of the Schwarzschild geometry
• Stellar Dynamics of Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals
• Osculating orbits in Schwarzschild spacetime, with an application to extreme mass-ratio inspirals
• The self-consistent gravitational self-force
• The influence of the hydrodynamic drag from an accretion torus on extreme mass-ratio inspirals
• How to observe a non-Kerr spacetime
• A Solution to the Galactic Foreground Problem for LISA
• Homoclinic Orbits around Spinning Black Holes I: Exact Solution for the Kerr Separatrix
• Gravitational waves from Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals in non-pure Kerr spacetimes
• Astrophysically relevant bound trajectories around a Kerr black hole
• Multi-scale analysis of the electromagnetic self-force in a weak gravitational field
• Fundamental physics and cosmology with LISA
• Singular perturbation techniques in the gravitational self-force problem
• A LISA Data-Analysis Primer
• Evolution of the Carter constant for inspirals into a black hole: effect of the black hole quadrupole
• Computational Efficiency of Frequency-- and Time--Domain Calculations of Extreme Mass--Ratio Binaries: Equatorial Orbits
• A complete characterisation of the orbital shapes of the non-circular Kerr geodesic solutions with circular orbit constants of motion
• A nonlinear scalar model of extreme mass ratio inspirals in effective field theory I. Self force through third order
• Homoclinic orbits in Kerr-Newman black holes
• Comparison of post-Newtonian templates for extreme mass ratio inspirals
• Verifying black hole orbits with gravitational spectroscopy
• Mission Design for the TAIJI misson and Structure Formation in Early Universe
• Motion of small bodies in general relativity: foundations and implementations of the self-force