Spin–orbit precession for eccentric black hole binaries at first order in the mass ratio. (20th March 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Akcay, Sarp; Dempsey, David; Dolan, Sam R
• Is Part Of: Classical and quantum gravity. Volume 34:Number 8(2017:Apr.)
• Publication Date: 2017-03-20
• Subjects: gravitational self-force -- gauge invariants -- extreme mass ratio inspirals -- geodetic effect -- binary black holes -- post-Newtonian theory; Quantum gravity -- Periodicals; Gravitation -- Periodicals; Relativity (Physics) -- Periodicals; Space and time -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 521.1
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6382/aa61d6
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0264-9381

Abstract

Abstract: We consider spin–orbit ('geodetic') precession for a compact binary in strong-field gravity. Specifically, we compute ψ, the ratio of the accumulated spin-precession and orbital angles over one radial period, for a spinning compact body of mass m 1 and spin s 1, with s 1 ≪ G m 1 2 / c, orbiting a non-rotating black hole. We show that ψ can be computed for eccentric orbits in both the gravitational self-force and post-Newtonian frameworks, and that the results appear to be consistent. We present a post-Newtonian expansion for ψ at next-to-next-to-leading order, and a Lorenz-gauge gravitational self-force calculation for ψ at first order in the mass ratio. The latter provides new numerical data in the strong-field regime to inform the effective one-body model of the gravitational two-body problem. We conclude that ψ complements the Detweiler redshift z as a key invariant quantity characterizing eccentric orbits in the gravitational two-body problem.