Extreme mass-ratio inspirals as probes of scalar fields: Eccentric equatorial orbits around Kerr black holes

Barsanti, Susanna; Franchini, Nicola; Gualtieri, Leonardo; Maselli, Andrea; Sotiriou, Thomas P.

Abstract

We study binary systems in which a stellar mass compact object spirals into a massive black hole, known as extreme mass ratio inspirals, in scenarios with a new fundamental scalar field. Earlier work has shown that, in most interesting such scenarios and to leading order in the mass ratio, the massive black holes can be adequately approximated by the Kerr metric and the imprint of the scalar field on the waveform is fully controlled by the scalar charge of the stellar mass object. Here we use this drastic simplification in the inspiral modeling and consider eccentric equatorial orbits. We study how the scalar charge affects the orbital evolution for different eccentricities and different values of the black hole spin. We then determine how changes in the orbital evolution get imprinted on the waveform and assess LISA's capability to detect or constrain the scalar charge.

Citation

Barsanti, S., Franchini, N., Gualtieri, L., Maselli, A., & Sotiriou, T. P. (2022). Extreme mass-ratio inspirals as probes of scalar fields: Eccentric equatorial orbits around Kerr black holes. Physical Review D, 106(4), Article 044029. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.106.044029

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 14, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Aug 11, 2022
• Publication Date: Aug 15, 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 13, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 13, 2022
• Journal: Physical Review D
• Print ISSN: 2470-0010
• Electronic ISSN: 2470-0029
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 106
• Issue: 4
• Article Number: 044029
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.106.044029
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/10357780
• Publisher URL: https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.106.044029