The impact of realistic models of mass segregation on the event rate of extreme-mass ratio inspirals and cusp re-growth

DOI10.1088/0264-9381/28/9/094017zbMATH Open1216.83022arXiv1010.5781OpenAlexW3123740973MaRDI QIDQ3000849FDOQ3000849

Authors: Pau Amaro Seoane, M. Preto 

Publication date: 31 May 2011

Published in: Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: One of the most interesting sources of gravitational waves (GWs) for LISA is the inspiral of compact objects on to a massive black hole (MBH), commonly referred to as an "extreme-mass ratio inspiral" (EMRI). The small object, typically a stellar black hole (bh), emits significant amounts of GW along each orbit in the detector bandwidth. The slowly, adiabatic inspiral of these sources will allow us to map space-time around MBHs in detail, as well as to test our current conception of gravitation in the strong regime. The event rate of this kind of source has been addressed many times in the literature and the numbers reported fluctuate by orders of magnitude. On the other hand, recent observations of the Galactic center revealed a dearth of giant stars inside the inner parsec relative to the numbers theoretically expected for a fully relaxed stellar cusp. The possibility of unrelaxed nuclei (or, equivalently, with no or only a very shallow cusp) adds substantial uncertainty to the estimates. Having this timely question in mind, we run a significant number of direct-summation $N-$body simulations with up to half a million particles to calibrate a much faster orbit-averaged Fokker-Planck code. We then investigate the regime of strong mass segregation (SMS) for models with two different stellar mass components. We show that, under quite generic initial conditions, the time required for the growth of a relaxed, mass segregated stellar cusp is shorter than a Hubble time for MBHs with $$ (i.e. nuclei in the range of LISA). SMS has a significant impact boosting the EMRI rates by a factor of $sim10$ for our fiducial models of Milky Way type galactic nuclei.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1010.5781

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zbMATH Keywords

gravitational waves

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistical astronomy (85A35) Black holes (83C57) Observational and experimental questions in relativity and gravitational theory (83B05) Gravitational waves (83C35) Galactic and stellar structure (85A15)

Cited In (6)

• Monte Carlo cluster simulations to determine the rate of compact star inspiralling to a central galactic black hole
• Event rate estimates for LISA extreme mass ratio capture sources
• Dynamical friction in gravitational atoms
• Gravitational waves -- a review on the theoretical foundations of gravitational radiation
• Probing black holes at low redshift using LISA EMRI observations
• The loss cone: past, present and future

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