Tidal heating as a discriminator for horizons in equatorial eccentric extreme mass ratio inspirals

verfasst von
Sayak Datta, Richard Brito, Scott A. Hughes, Talya Klinger, Paolo Pani
Abstract

Tidal heating in a binary black hole system is driven by the absorption of energy and angular momentum by the black hole's horizon. Previous works have shown that this phenomenon becomes particularly significant during the late stages of an extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI) into a rapidly spinning massive black hole, a key focus for future low-frequency gravitational-wave observations by (for instance) the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission. Past analyses have largely focused on quasicircular inspiral geometry, with some of the most detailed studies looking at equatorial cases. Though useful for illustrating the physical principles, this limit is not very realistic astrophysically, since the population of EMRI events is expected to arise from compact objects scattered onto relativistic orbits in galactic centers through many-body events. In this work, we extend those results by studying the importance of tidal heating in equatorial EMRIs with generic eccentricities. Our results suggest that accurate modeling of tidal heating is crucial to prevent significant dephasing and systematic errors in EMRI parameter estimation. We examine a phenomenological model for EMRIs around exotic compact objects by parametrizing deviations from the black hole (BH) picture in terms of the fraction of radiation absorbed compared to the BH case. Based on a mismatch calculation, we find that reflectivities as small as |R|2∼O(10-5) are distinguishable from the BH case, irrespective of the value of the eccentricity. We stress, however, that this finding should be corroborated by future parameter estimation studies.

Organisationseinheit(en)
Institut für Gravitationsphysik
Externe Organisation(en)
Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut)
Universidade de Lisboa
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Sapienza Università di Roma
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)
Typ
Artikel
Journal
Physical Review D
Band
110
Anzahl der Seiten
18
ISSN
2470-0010
Publikationsdatum
22.07.2024
Publikationsstatus
Veröffentlicht
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Kern- und Hochenergiephysik
Elektronische Version(en)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2404.04013 (Zugang: Offen)
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.110.024048 (Zugang: Offen)