Modeling Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals within the Effective-One-Body Approach

TL;DR

This paper develops the first effective-one-body models for extreme-mass-ratio inspirals, achieving high accuracy in gravitational waveform predictions and exploring the impact of self-force effects over long evolutions.

Contribution

It introduces the first EOB models for EMRIs, demonstrating their accuracy and potential for modeling intermediate-mass ratio inspirals with improved phase agreement.

Findings

Phase difference less than 0.1 rad after 2 years

Amplitude difference less than 2 x 10^(-3) after 2 years

Self-force inclusion reduces phase disagreement to 6-27 rad

Abstract

We present the first models of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals within the effective-one-body (EOB) formalism, focusing on quasi-circular orbits into non-rotating black holes. We show that the phase difference and (Newtonian normalized) amplitude difference between analytical EOB and numerical Teukolsky-based gravitational waveforms can be reduced to less than 10^(-1) rad and less than 2 x 10^(-3), respectively, after a 2-year evolution. The inclusion of post-Newtonian self-force terms in the EOB approach leads to a phase disagreement of roughly 6-27 rad after a 2-year evolution. Such inclusion could also allow for the EOB modeling of waveforms from intermediate-mass ratio, quasi-circular inspirals.