Work

Effects of black hole environments on extreme mass-ratio hyperbolic encounters

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Extreme mass-ratio hyperbolic encounters (EMRHEs) around the supermassive black holes will be observable at the future gravitational-wave (GW) detectors in space, such as LISA and Taiji. Here we consider such EMRHEs in the presence of surrounding matter distribution including baryonic accretion disk and dark matter (DM) spike, and estimate their effects on the orbital evolution and GW waveforms. We find that large possible impacts come from the gravitational potential of the accretion disk, while the influence of the DM spike is small. We also illustrate that environments can leave distinctive imprints on the GW waveforms, but resolving such modifications is found to be challenging for LISA-like detectors in the near future.

Source: Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevd.111.083010

Authors: Ya-Ze Cheng, Yan Cao, Yong Tang

Institutions: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing University, International Centre for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific

Language: English

Topic: Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research

Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key Research and Development Program of China, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

Awards: G5847793060, G6329186922