Gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries: Angular momentum flux, evolution of the orbital elements and the wave form to the second post-Newtonian order

TL;DR

This paper derives the second post-Newtonian order corrections to gravitational waveforms, energy, and angular momentum fluxes for inspiralling compact binaries in general orbits, enhancing the precision of gravitational wave modeling.

Contribution

It provides the 2PN accurate mass quadrupole moment and fluxes for binaries in arbitrary orbits, extending previous work to higher precision.

Findings

Derived 2PN mass quadrupole moment for arbitrary mass ratios

Computed 2PN gravitational waveform and fluxes for general orbits

Determined 2PN corrections to orbital decay rates for quasi-elliptic orbits

Abstract

The post-post-Newtonian (2PN) accurate mass quadrupole moment, for compact binaries of arbitrary mass ratio, moving in general orbits is obtained by the multi-polar post Minkowskian approach of Blanchet, Damour, and Iyer (BDI). Using this, for binaries in general orbits, the 2PN contributions to the gravitational waveform, and the associated far-zone energy and angular momentum fluxes are computed. For quasi-elliptic orbits, the energy and angular momentum fluxes are averaged over an orbital period, and employed to determine the 2PN corrections to the rate of decay of the orbital elements.