Ringdown amplitudes of nonspinning eccentric binaries

Abstract

Closed-form expressions for the ringdown complex amplitudes of nonspinning unequal-mass binaries in arbitrarily eccentric orbits are presented. They are built upon 237 numerical simulations contained within the RIT catalog, through the parameterisation introduced in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 132 (2024) 101401]. Global fits for the complex amplitudes, associated to linear quasinormal mode frequencies of the dominant ringdown modes, are obtained in a factorised form immediately applicable to any existing quasi-circular model. Similarly to merger amplitudes, ringdown ones increase by more than 50% compared to the circular case for high impact parameters (medium eccentricities), while strongly suppressed in the low impact parameter (highly eccentric) limit. Such reduction can be explained by a transition between an “orbital-type” and an “infall-type” dynamics. The amplitudes (phases) fits accuracy lies around a few percent (deciradians) for the majority of the dataset, comparable to the accuracy of current state-of-the-art quasi-circular ringdown models, and well within current statistical errors of current LIGO-Virgo-Kagra ringdown observations. These expressions constitute another building block towards the construction of complete general relativistic inspiral-merger-ringdown semi-analytical templates, and allow to extend numerically-informed spectroscopic analyses beyond the circular limit. Such generalisations are key to achieve accurate inference of compact binaries astrophysical properties, and tame astrophysical systematics within observational investigations of strong-field general relativistic dynamics.