Eccentric FD

Once a pair of compact objects are mutually gravitationally bound, they begin to lose energy and angular momentum to gravitational waves, a process that relatively rapidly circularizes their orbit. Over time, the orbit period decreases, until eventually the binary orbits tens to hundreds of times a second, the frequency range to which ground based gravitational wave detectors are sensitive. Since compact object binaries usually form in relatively wide orbits, with closest approach (perihelion) within a few orders of magnitude of a solar radius and hence orbital periods of minutes to days, by the time these binaries reach this sensitive band, they’re almost exactly circular. But not always.

Even a slight eccentricity in the sensitive band of ground-based detectors produces a measurable impact. This impact will only impair our ability to detect gravitational waves if the eccentricity was truly extreme (e>0.4 at orbital frequency 5Hz). But eccentricity can complicate our ability to measure astrophysical parameters.

In this paper, Eliu Huerta at West Virginia University and his collaborators (myself included) introduce a simple, fast model for gravitational waves from eccentric binaries. This model will help quantify how much eccentricity matters, as well as contribute to strategies to detect eccentric sources.

For more information, see our paper: Huerta et al (2014)