Cumulative effect of orbital resonances in extreme-mass-ratio inspirals

TL;DR

This paper investigates how multiple orbital resonances cumulatively influence the evolution of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals, emphasizing the need for individualized modeling of resonance effects to improve gravitational-wave data analysis.

Contribution

It introduces an effective resonance model with analytically derived flux corrections, highlighting the importance of individualized resonance shifts for accurate EMRI evolution modeling.

Findings

Cumulative resonance effects significantly alter EMRI orbital evolution.

Universal resonance shifts overestimate resonance impacts.

Individualized shifts are necessary for precise gravitational-wave templates.

Abstract

Orbital resonances in extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) have been proven to be a key feature for accurate gravitational-wave template modeling. Decades of research have led to schemes that can not only model the adiabatic inspiral of such a binary system, but also account for the effects of resonances on their evolution. In this work, we use an effective resonance model that includes analytically derived corrections to the radiation reaction fluxes, to study the combined effects of both dominant (low-order) and subdominant (high-order) orbital resonances in EMRIs. We show that using single, universal shifts for all fluxes overestimates the resonance impact, and therefore individualized shifts for each resonance crossing are needed for accurate modeling. Our analysis reveals that the cumulative effects from multiple resonance crossings can significantly impact the orbital evolution of EMRIs, especially for highly eccentric orbits. Our results provide further evidence that resonance effects have to be included in template production to extract detailed astrophysical parameters from EMRI signals.