TAPIR Seminar

In person: 370 Cahill. To Join via Zoom: 851 0756 7442

ABSTRACT: Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) are among the primary targets of space-based gravitational-wave detectors such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). If the secondary orbits an actively accreting supermassive black hole (SMBH), torques exerted by the accretion disk on the EMRI can play an important role in both its formation and subsequent evolution. In this talk, I will describe a framework for modeling relativistic disk–EMRI interactions and show that relativistic effects become important for EMRIs in the LISA band. For circular EMRIs, the energy exchanged through disk–EMRI interactions are typically subdominant to gravitational-wave energy loss and primarily acts to accelerate the inspiral. For eccentric EMRIs, however, disk–EMRI interactions primarily slow the inspiral and can dominate over gravitational-wave energy loss during the early stages of evolution. These results highlight the importance of incorporating disk–EMRI interactions when modeling the formation and evolution of EMRIs around accreting SMBHs.