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Published September 15, 2015 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Multi-timescale analysis of phase transitions in precessing black-hole binaries

Abstract

The dynamics of precessing binary black holes (BBHs) in the post-Newtonian regime has a strong timescale hierarchy: the orbital timescale is very short compared to the spin-precession timescale which, in turn, is much shorter than the radiation-reaction timescale on which the orbit is shrinking due to gravitational-wave emission. We exploit this timescale hierarchy to develop a multiscale analysis of BBH dynamics elaborating on the analysis of Kesden et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 081103 (2015)]. We solve the spin-precession equations analytically on the precession time and then implement a quasiadiabatic approach to evolve these solutions on the longer radiation-reaction time. This procedure leads to an innovative "precession-averaged" post-Newtonian approach to studying precessing BBHs. We use our new solutions to classify BBH spin precession into three distinct morphologies, then investigate phase transitions between these morphologies as BBHs inspiral. These precession-averaged post-Newtonian inspirals can be efficiently calculated from arbitrarily large separations, thus making progress towards bridging the gap between astrophysics and numerical relativity.

Additional Information

© 2015 American Physical Society. (Received 10 June 2015; published 14 September 2015) D. G. is supported by the UK STFC and the Isaac Newton Studentship of the University of Cambridge. M. K. is supported by Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant No. FG-2015-65299. R. O'S. is supported by NSF Grants No. PHY-0970074 and No. PHY-1307429. E. B. is supported by NSF CAREER Grant No. PHY-1055103 and by FCT Contract No. IF/00797/2014/CP1214/CT0012 under the IF2014 Programme. U.S. is supported by FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG Grant No. 293412, FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IRSES Grant No. 295189, H2020 ERC Consolidator Grant Agreement No. MaGRaTh-646597, SDSC and TACC through XSEDE Grant No. PHY-090003 by the NSF, Finis Terrae through Grant No. ICTS-CESGA-249, STFC Roller Grant No. ST/L000636/1 and DiRAC's Cosmos Shared Memory system through BIS Grant No. ST/J005673/1 and STFC Grants No. ST/H008586/1, No. ST/K00333X/1. Figures were generated using the python-based matplotlib package [80].

Attached Files

Published - PhysRevD.92.064016.pdf

Submitted - 1506.03492v2.pdf

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Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 24, 2023