Li, Chao and Lovelace, Geoffrey (2008) Generalization of Ryan's theorem: Probing tidal coupling with gravitational waves from nearly circular, nearly equatorial, extreme-mass-ratio inspirals. Physical Review D, 77 (6). Art. No. 0640. ISSN 2470-0010. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.77.064022. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:LICprd08
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Abstract
Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) and intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals (IMRIs)—binaries in which a stellar-mass object spirals into a massive black hole or other massive, compact body—are important sources of gravitational waves for LISA and LIGO, respectively. Thorne has speculated that the waves from EMRIs and IMRIs encode, in principle, all the details of (i) the central body's spacetime geometry (metric), (ii) the tidal coupling (energy and angular momentum exchange) between the central body and orbiting object, and (iii) the evolving orbital elements. Fintan Ryan has given a first partial proof that this speculation is correct: Restricting himself to nearly circular, nearly equatorial orbits and ignoring tidal coupling, Ryan proved that the central body's metric is encoded in the waves. In this paper we generalize Ryan's theorem. Retaining Ryan's restriction to nearly circular and nearly equatorial orbits, and dropping the assumption of no tidal coupling, we prove that Thorne's conjecture is nearly fully correct: the waves encode not only the central body's metric but also the evolving orbital elements and (in a sense slightly different from Thorne's conjecture) the evolving tidal coupling.
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Additional Information: | ©2008 The American Physical Society. (Received 28 February 2007; published 19 March 2008) We would like to thank Yanbei Chen, Steve Drasco, Yi Pan, and Kip Thorne for helpful discussions, Drasco for carefully reading a draft of this paper, and Thorne for assistance with the prose of this paper. This work was supported in part by NSF grants PHY-0099568 and PHY-0601459, NASA grants NAG5-12834 and NNG04GK98G, and the Brinson Foundation. | ||||||
Issue or Number: | 6 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevD.77.064022 | ||||||
Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:LICprd08 | ||||||
Persistent URL: | https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:LICprd08 | ||||||
Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | ||||||
ID Code: | 9839 | ||||||
Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | ||||||
Deposited By: | Archive Administrator | ||||||
Deposited On: | 21 Mar 2008 | ||||||
Last Modified: | 08 Nov 2021 21:02 |
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