Inspiral into Gargantua

Samuel E. Gralla; Scott A. Hughes; Niels Warburton

doi:10.1088/0264-9381/33/15/155002

Inspiral into Gargantua

Samuel E. Gralla, Scott A. Hughes, Niels Warburton

Physics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

33 Scopus citations

Abstract

We model the inspiral of a compact object into a more massive black hole rotating very near the theoretical maximum. We find that once the body enters the near-horizon regime the gravitational radiation is characterized by a constant frequency, equal to (twice) the horizon frequency, with an exponentially damped profile. This contrasts with the usual 'chirping' behavior and, if detected, would constitute a 'smoking gun' for a near-extremal black hole in nature.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	155002
Journal	Classical and Quantum Gravity
Volume	33
Issue number	15
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/0264-9381/33/15/155002
State	Published - Jul 5 2016

Keywords

black holes
extremal spin
gravitational waves

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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10.1088/0264-9381/33/15/155002

Cite this

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title = "Inspiral into Gargantua",

abstract = "We model the inspiral of a compact object into a more massive black hole rotating very near the theoretical maximum. We find that once the body enters the near-horizon regime the gravitational radiation is characterized by a constant frequency, equal to (twice) the horizon frequency, with an exponentially damped profile. This contrasts with the usual 'chirping' behavior and, if detected, would constitute a 'smoking gun' for a near-extremal black hole in nature.",

keywords = "black holes, extremal spin, gravitational waves",

author = "Gralla, {Samuel E.} and Hughes, {Scott A.} and Niels Warburton",

note = "Funding Information: This work was supported in part by NSF grants PHY1506027 to the University of Arizona, PHY1205550 to Harvard University, and PHY1403261 to MIT. NW gratefully acknowledges support from a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship (PIOF-GA-2012-627781). Many of our computations were performed on the MIT Kavli Institute computing cluster, which is supported by funds from the Kavli Foundation. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd.",

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doi = "10.1088/0264-9381/33/15/155002",

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AU - Gralla, Samuel E.

AU - Hughes, Scott A.

AU - Warburton, Niels

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported in part by NSF grants PHY1506027 to the University of Arizona, PHY1205550 to Harvard University, and PHY1403261 to MIT. NW gratefully acknowledges support from a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship (PIOF-GA-2012-627781). Many of our computations were performed on the MIT Kavli Institute computing cluster, which is supported by funds from the Kavli Foundation. Publisher Copyright: © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd.

PY - 2016/7/5

Y1 - 2016/7/5

N2 - We model the inspiral of a compact object into a more massive black hole rotating very near the theoretical maximum. We find that once the body enters the near-horizon regime the gravitational radiation is characterized by a constant frequency, equal to (twice) the horizon frequency, with an exponentially damped profile. This contrasts with the usual 'chirping' behavior and, if detected, would constitute a 'smoking gun' for a near-extremal black hole in nature.

AB - We model the inspiral of a compact object into a more massive black hole rotating very near the theoretical maximum. We find that once the body enters the near-horizon regime the gravitational radiation is characterized by a constant frequency, equal to (twice) the horizon frequency, with an exponentially damped profile. This contrasts with the usual 'chirping' behavior and, if detected, would constitute a 'smoking gun' for a near-extremal black hole in nature.

KW - black holes

KW - extremal spin

KW - gravitational waves

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JO - Classical and Quantum Gravity

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Inspiral into Gargantua

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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