Self-force gravitational waveforms for extreme and intermediate mass ratio inspirals. II: Importance of the second-order dissipative effect

TL;DR

This paper assesses the impact of second-order dissipative self-force effects on gravitational wave phase evolution in extreme and intermediate mass ratio inspirals, finding these effects cause smaller dephasing than first-order conservative forces.

Contribution

It introduces a model incorporating second-order dissipative self-force effects into gravitational waveform calculations for mass ratio inspirals.

Findings

Second-order dissipative self-force causes less dephasing than first-order conservative self-force.

The phase includes all relevant terms independent of the mass ratio within the approximation.

The second-order effects are significant but smaller compared to first-order effects.

Abstract

We consider the importance of the second-order dissipative self force for gravitational wave dephasing for an extreme or intermediate mass ratio system moving along a quasi-circular Schwarzschild orbit. For the first-order self force we use the fully relativistic force in the Lorenz gauge for eternally circular geodesics. The second-order self force is modeled by its 3.5 post Newtonian counterpart. We evolve the system using the osculating orbits method, and obtain the gravitational waveforms, whose phase includes all the terms - within our approximation (and using the self force along circular geodesics) - that are independent of the system's mass ratio. The partial dephasing due to the second-order dissipative self force is substantially smaller than that of the first-order conservative self force, although they are both at the same order in the mass ratio.