Prospects for Detection of Gravitational Waves from Intermediate-Mass-Ratio Inspirals

Brown, D. A.; Brink, Jeandrew; Fang, Hua; Gair, J. R.; Li, Chao; Lovelace, Geoffrey; Mandel, Ilya; Thorne, Kip S.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.99.201102

Cited by 92 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…For example, from Advanced LIGO IMRI data it may be possible to measure the quadrupole moment, Q, of an IMBH to an accuracy of ÁQ $ Q Kerr , where Q Kerr is the quadrupole moment of a Kerr BH (Brown et al 2007). This is sufficient to distinguish a BH from a boson star, for which the quadrupole moment can be many times the Kerr value.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rates and Characteristics of Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspirals Detectable by Advanced LIGO

Mandel

Brown

Gair

et al. 2008

ApJ

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Gravitational waves (GWs) from the inspiral of a neutron star ( NS) or stellar-mass black hole ( BH ) into an intermediate-mass black hole ( IMBH ) with mass M $ 50 350 M may be detectable by the planned advanced generation of ground-based GW interferometers. Such intermediate mass ratio inspirals (IMRIs) are most likely to be found in globular clusters. We analyze four possible IMRI formation mechanisms: (1) hardening of an NS-IMBH or BH-IMBH binary via three-body interactions, (2) hardening via Kozai resonance in a hierarchical triple system, (3) direct capture, and (4) inspiral of a CO from a tidally captured main-sequence star; we also discuss tidal effects when the inspiraling object is an NS. For each mechanism we predict the typical eccentricities of the resulting IMRIs. We find that IMRIs will have largely circularized by the time they enter the sensitivity band of ground-based detectors. Hardening of a binary via three-body interactions, which is likely to be the dominant mechanism for IMRI formation, yields eccentricities under 10 À4 when the GW frequency reaches 10 Hz. Even among IMRIs formed via direct captures, which can have the highest eccentricities, around 90% will circularize to eccentricities under 0.1 before the GW frequency reaches 10 Hz. We estimate the rate of IMRI coalescences in globular clusters and the sensitivity of a network of three Advanced LIGO detectors to the resulting GWs. We show that this detector network may see up to tens of IMRIs per year, although rates of one to a few per year may be more plausible. We also estimate the loss in signal-to-noise ratio that will result from using circular IMRI templates for data analysis and find that, for the eccentricities we expect, this loss is negligible.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rates and Characteristics of Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspirals Detectable by Advanced LIGO

Mandel

Brown

Gair

et al. 2008

ApJ

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129

179

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“…I have shown that through second order in its mass, a small body moves on a geodesic of a certain locally defined regular metric. I have also derived results, given by (9), (12), and (16), that (together with the firstorder equations) may be used to simultaneously evolve the body's position and find the perturbation due to it, thereby solving the EFE through second order. Although these results were derived only for a nonrotating black hole, they should hold for any spherical, compact body with slow internal dynamics.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, comparisons with numerical simulations suggest that the second-order self-force would provide a highly accurate description of intermediate-massratio binaries and even a reasonably accurate description of similar-mass binaries [10,11], both of which should soon be observed by the ground-based detector Advanced LIGO [16,17]. The second-order force would also fix EOB parameters quadratic in m. Although some work on the second-order problem has been done [18,19], it was performed in an impractical gauge, with no clear means of calculating the force or the perturbation producing it, and the basis of its approach was problematic [5][6][7]20].…”

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confidence: 99%

Second-Order Gravitational Self-Force

2012

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Using a rigorous method of matched asymptotic expansions, I derive the equation of motion of a small, compact body in an external vacuum spacetime through second order in the body's mass (neglecting effects of internal structure). The motion is found to be geodesic in a certain locally defined regular geometry satisfying Einstein's equation at second order. I outline a method of numerically obtaining both the metric of that regular geometry and the complete second-order metric perturbation produced by the body.PACS numbers: 04.25.Nx, 04.30.Db Introduction. The governing equation of general relativity, the Einstein field equation (EFE), describes how bodies influence spacetime curvature and move within the resultant curved geometry. Yet, since the seminal work of Einstein, Infeld, and Hoffman in 1938 [1], study of this nonlinear problem of motion has largely focused on the post-Newtonian limit of slow motion and weak fields. In the strong-field regime, bodies have instead typically been approximated as test bodies moving in a spacetime that is unaffected by them. Only within the last fifteen years [2,3] has there arisen an analytical description of the gravitational backreaction: the body's perturbative effect on spacetime geometry and that perturbation's effect on the body's motion. In the case of a small mass m, this backreaction is called the gravitational self-force, and it is now well understood at linear order in m [4][5][6][7]. Beyond its foundational role, the self-force is also potentially of great astrophysical importance, as it describes the evolution of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs), in which a stellar black hole or neutron star spirals into a supermassive black hole. Such systems are predicted to be key sources for the planned gravitational wave detector LISA [8], and they will afford both a unique probe of strong-field dynamics and a map of the spacetime near black holes. The self-force also provides an essential point of comparison with other treatments of the problem of motion: it complements post-Newtonian theory [9,10] and fully nonlinear numerical simulations [10,11], both of which are ill-suited to extreme mass ratios; and it fixes mass-dependent parameters in Effective One Body (EOB) theory [12][13][14].

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“…If such IMBHs are discovered, their observations would shed light on very massive star evolution and globular cluster dynamics. IMBHs could also prove to be particularly accurate probes of strong-field dynamical gravity, allowing for tests of the general theory of relativity [e.g., 22,23]. As the coalescence of IMBHBs is expected to be electromagnetically quiet, gravitational waves are likely to be the only means of observing these systems directly.…”

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confidence: 99%

Measuring Intermediate-Mass Black-Hole Binaries with Advanced Gravitational Wave Detectors

2015

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We perform a systematic study to explore the accuracy with which the parameters of intermediatemass black hole binary (IMBHB) systems can be measured from their gravitational wave (GW) signatures using second-generation GW detectors. We make use of the most recent reduced-order models containing inspiral, merger and ringdown signals of aligned-spin effective-one-body waveforms (SEOBNR) to significantly speed up the calculations. We explore the phenomenology of the measurement accuracies for binaries with total masses between 50 and 500 M and mass ratios between 0.1 and 1. We find that (i) at total masses below ∼ 200 M , where the signal-to-noise-ratio is dominated by the inspiral portion of the signal, the chirp mass parameter can be accurately measured; (ii) at higher masses, the information content is dominated by the ringdown, and total mass is measured more accurately; (iii) the mass of the lower-mass companion is poorly estimated, especially at high total mass and more extreme mass ratios; (iv) spin cannot be accurately measured for our injection set with non-spinning components. Most importantly, we find that for binaries with non-spinning components at all values of the mass ratio in the considered range and at network signal-to-noise ratio of 15, analyzed with spin-aligned templates, the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole with mass > 100 M can be confirmed with 95% confidence in any binary that includes a component with a mass of 130 M or greater.

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Prospects for Detection of Gravitational Waves from Intermediate-Mass-Ratio Inspirals

Cited by 92 publications

References 28 publications

Rates and Characteristics of Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspirals Detectable by Advanced LIGO

Rates and Characteristics of Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspirals Detectable by Advanced LIGO

Second-Order Gravitational Self-Force

Measuring Intermediate-Mass Black-Hole Binaries with Advanced Gravitational Wave Detectors

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