Secondary accretion of dark matter in intermediate mass-ratio inspirals: Dark-matter dynamics and gravitational-wave phase

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Nichols, David A., Wade, Benjamin A., Grant, Alexander M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Nichols, David A.
Wade, Benjamin A.
Grant, Alexander M.
author_facet Nichols, David A.
Wade, Benjamin A.
Grant, Alexander M.
contents When particle dark matter is bound gravitationally around a massive black hole in sufficiently high densities, the dark matter will affect the rate of inspiral of a secondary compact object that forms a binary with the massive black hole. In this paper, we revisit previous estimates of the impact of dark-matter accretion by black-hole secondaries on the emitted gravitational waves. We identify a region of parameter space of binaries for which estimates of the accretion were too large (specifically, because the dark-matter distribution was assumed to be unchanging throughout the process, and the secondary black hole accreted more mass in dark matter than that enclosed within the orbit of the secondary). To restore consistency in these scenarios, we propose and implement a method to remove dark-matter particles from the distribution function when they are accreted by the secondary. This new feedback procedure then satisfies mass conservation, and when evolved with physically reasonable initial data, the mass accreted by the secondary no longer exceeds the mass enclosed within its orbital radius. Comparing the simulations with accretion feedback to those without this feedback, including feedback leads to a smaller gravitational-wave dephasing from binaries in which only the effects of dynamical friction are being modeled. Nevertheless, the dephasing can be hundreds to almost a thousand gravitational-wave cycles, an amount that should allow the effects of accretion to be inferred from gravitational-wave measurements of these systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_06498
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Secondary accretion of dark matter in intermediate mass-ratio inspirals: Dark-matter dynamics and gravitational-wave phase
Nichols, David A.
Wade, Benjamin A.
Grant, Alexander M.
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
When particle dark matter is bound gravitationally around a massive black hole in sufficiently high densities, the dark matter will affect the rate of inspiral of a secondary compact object that forms a binary with the massive black hole. In this paper, we revisit previous estimates of the impact of dark-matter accretion by black-hole secondaries on the emitted gravitational waves. We identify a region of parameter space of binaries for which estimates of the accretion were too large (specifically, because the dark-matter distribution was assumed to be unchanging throughout the process, and the secondary black hole accreted more mass in dark matter than that enclosed within the orbit of the secondary). To restore consistency in these scenarios, we propose and implement a method to remove dark-matter particles from the distribution function when they are accreted by the secondary. This new feedback procedure then satisfies mass conservation, and when evolved with physically reasonable initial data, the mass accreted by the secondary no longer exceeds the mass enclosed within its orbital radius. Comparing the simulations with accretion feedback to those without this feedback, including feedback leads to a smaller gravitational-wave dephasing from binaries in which only the effects of dynamical friction are being modeled. Nevertheless, the dephasing can be hundreds to almost a thousand gravitational-wave cycles, an amount that should allow the effects of accretion to be inferred from gravitational-wave measurements of these systems.
title Secondary accretion of dark matter in intermediate mass-ratio inspirals: Dark-matter dynamics and gravitational-wave phase
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.06498