Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals: LISA's unique probe of black hole gravity

TL;DR

This review summarizes the study of extreme mass ratio inspirals around Kerr black holes, focusing on gravitational waveforms and orbital dynamics, highlighting their importance as sources for the future LISA detector.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive survey of celestial mechanics, waveform calculations, and backreaction effects in Kerr spacetime using flux-balance and Teukolsky formalisms.

Findings

Detailed understanding of gravitational waveforms from EMRIs

Insights into orbital evolution in Kerr spacetime

Assessment of EMRIs as LISA sources

Abstract

In this review article I attempt to summarise past and present-ongoing-work on the problem of the inspiral of a small body in the gravitational field of a much more massive Kerr black hole. Such extreme mass ratio systems, expected to occur in galactic nuclei, will constitute prime sources of gravitational radiation for the future LISA gravitational radiation detector. The article's main goal is to provide a survey of basic celestial mechanics in Kerr spacetime and calculations of gravitational waveforms and backreaction on the small body's orbital motion, based on the traditional `flux-balance' method and the Teukolsky black hole perturbation formalism.