Teukolsky evolution of particle orbits around Kerr black holes in the time domain: elliptic and inclined orbits

TL;DR

This paper advances the time-domain modeling of gravitational waves from particles in elliptic and inclined orbits around Kerr black holes, comparing results with frequency domain methods.

Contribution

It extends Kerr black hole perturbation theory to include elliptic and inclined orbits in the time domain, using Gaussian smearing for the source.

Findings

Good agreement with frequency domain results for fluxes

Demonstrates feasibility of time-domain approach for complex orbits

Provides a new tool for gravitational wave modeling around Kerr black holes

Abstract

We extend the treatment of the problem of the gravitational waves produced by a particle of negligible mass orbiting a Kerr black hole using black hole perturbation theory in the time domain, to elliptic and inclined orbits. We model the particle by smearing the singularities in the source term using narrow Gaussian distributions. We compare results (energy and angular momentum fluxes) for such orbits with those computed using the frequency domain formalism.