Modeling Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals within the Effective-One-Body Approach

Abstract

We present the first models of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals within the effective-one-body (EOB) formalism, focusing on quasi-circular orbits into non-rotating black holes. We show that the phase difference and (Newtonian normalized) amplitude difference between analytical EOB and numerical Teukolsky-based gravitational waveforms can be reduced to less than 10^(-1) rad and less than 2 x 10^(-3), respectively, after a 2-year evolution. The inclusion of post-Newtonian self-force terms in the EOB approach leads to a phase disagreement of roughly 6-27 rad after a 2-year evolution. Such inclusion could also allow for the EOB modeling of waveforms from intermediate-mass ratio, quasi-circular inspirals.

4 pages, 3 figures, replaced with version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letts