Tidal perturbations of an extreme mass ratio inspiral around a Kerr black hole

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Cocco, Marta, Grignani, Gianluca, Harmark, Troels, Orselli, Marta, Pereñiguez, David, van de Meent, Maarten
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Cocco, Marta
Grignani, Gianluca
Harmark, Troels
Orselli, Marta
Pereñiguez, David
van de Meent, Maarten
author_facet Cocco, Marta
Grignani, Gianluca
Harmark, Troels
Orselli, Marta
Pereñiguez, David
van de Meent, Maarten
contents We determine the metric of a Kerr black hole subject to external tidal fields using metric reconstruction techniques. Working within the Newman-Penrose formalism, we solve the Teukolsky master equation for static, quadrupolar modes associated with a slowly varying tidal environment, and reconstruct the corresponding metric perturbation in the outgoing radiation gauge. As an application, we derive the secular Hamiltonian governing the motion of a test particle in the tidally deformed Kerr spacetime and investigate long-term tidal effects relevant to extreme-mass-ratio inspirals. In particular, we compute tidal-induced shifts of the innermost stable circular orbit and the light ring. We find that these tidal corrections are strongly spin dependent, with significantly larger effects for retrograde orbits around rapidly rotating black holes. Our results provide a fully analytic framework for studying tidal interactions and secular dynamics in rotating black-hole spacetimes, with direct applications to gravitational-wave modeling and tests of gravity in the strong-field regime.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_00954
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tidal perturbations of an extreme mass ratio inspiral around a Kerr black hole
Cocco, Marta
Grignani, Gianluca
Harmark, Troels
Orselli, Marta
Pereñiguez, David
van de Meent, Maarten
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
We determine the metric of a Kerr black hole subject to external tidal fields using metric reconstruction techniques. Working within the Newman-Penrose formalism, we solve the Teukolsky master equation for static, quadrupolar modes associated with a slowly varying tidal environment, and reconstruct the corresponding metric perturbation in the outgoing radiation gauge. As an application, we derive the secular Hamiltonian governing the motion of a test particle in the tidally deformed Kerr spacetime and investigate long-term tidal effects relevant to extreme-mass-ratio inspirals. In particular, we compute tidal-induced shifts of the innermost stable circular orbit and the light ring. We find that these tidal corrections are strongly spin dependent, with significantly larger effects for retrograde orbits around rapidly rotating black holes. Our results provide a fully analytic framework for studying tidal interactions and secular dynamics in rotating black-hole spacetimes, with direct applications to gravitational-wave modeling and tests of gravity in the strong-field regime.
title Tidal perturbations of an extreme mass ratio inspiral around a Kerr black hole
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.00954