The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Frequency domain approach to self-force calculations

Frequency domain approach to self-force calculations
Frequency domain approach to self-force calculations
In this thesis, the problem of computing the back-reaction, or self-force, caused by a point particle interacting with its own field is studied. In particular, motivated by the prospect of detecting gravitational waves from extreme mass ratio inspiral systems, we consider the motion of the particle in black hole spacetimes. As a toy model for the most astrophysically relevant scenario of orbits about a rotating black hole we first study the scalar-field self-force (SSF)experienced by a scalar charge moving on a fixed geodesic in Kerr spacetime for a variety of orbits. Our approach is to work in the frequency domain, fully decomposing the scalar field into spheroidal harmonic and frequency modes and numerically solving for the retarded field mode-by-mode. Regularization of the retarded field is performed using the standard mode-sum technique which requires spherical harmonic modes as input, which we obtain by projecting the spheroidal harmonic modes on to a basis of spherical harmonics. We find for circular, equatorial orbits that the black hole spin can have a pronounced effect
on the conservative piece of the SSF, causing it to (with respect to the Schwarzschild scalar-field self-force) change sign for certain spins and orbital radii. For eccentric orbits in the equatorial plane, we make use of the recently introduced method of extended homogeneous solutions to overcome the Gibbs phenomenon associated with a naive approach. As an application of our work we compute the shift to the innermost stable circular orbit due to the conservative piece of the scalar-field self-force for a variety of black hole spins. We also present some preliminary results for the SSF along circular, inclined geodesics. As well as studying the toy model SSF, we also consider the gravitational self-force (GSF) problem in the context of orbits around a Schwarzschild black hole. Our approach is again to work in the frequency domain, and we perform a complete decomposition of the metric perturbation
in tensor spherical harmonics and frequency modes. The ten metric perturbation fields decouple with respect to the multipole indices but remain coupled within each spherical harmonic mode. We solve the resulting coupled sets numerically with a code set up to run on a computer cluster. Regularization is again performed using the mode-sum technique. Our resulting code is extremely efficient for low eccentricity orbits, and using it we compute the GSF for a great many points in the orbital parameter space. With these results we fit an analytic model to our numerical data and then use a relativistic osculating elements scheme to evolve the orbital inspiral. This allows us, for the first time, to assess the contribution to a
complete inspiral from the conservative piece of the gravitational self-force. Finally, as an aside, we investigate the recently discovered phenomenon of isofrequency orbits, whereby it is possible to have pairs of physically distinct bound geodesics about a Kerr black
hole that share the same three orbital frequencies.
Warburton, Niels Jamie
70ed293e-9530-4156-87a0-b245190d6e66
Warburton, Niels Jamie
70ed293e-9530-4156-87a0-b245190d6e66
Barack, Leor
f08e66d4-c2f7-4f2f-91b8-f2c4230d0298

Warburton, Niels Jamie (2012) Frequency domain approach to self-force calculations. University of Southampton, School of Mathematics, Doctoral Thesis, 207pp.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

In this thesis, the problem of computing the back-reaction, or self-force, caused by a point particle interacting with its own field is studied. In particular, motivated by the prospect of detecting gravitational waves from extreme mass ratio inspiral systems, we consider the motion of the particle in black hole spacetimes. As a toy model for the most astrophysically relevant scenario of orbits about a rotating black hole we first study the scalar-field self-force (SSF)experienced by a scalar charge moving on a fixed geodesic in Kerr spacetime for a variety of orbits. Our approach is to work in the frequency domain, fully decomposing the scalar field into spheroidal harmonic and frequency modes and numerically solving for the retarded field mode-by-mode. Regularization of the retarded field is performed using the standard mode-sum technique which requires spherical harmonic modes as input, which we obtain by projecting the spheroidal harmonic modes on to a basis of spherical harmonics. We find for circular, equatorial orbits that the black hole spin can have a pronounced effect
on the conservative piece of the SSF, causing it to (with respect to the Schwarzschild scalar-field self-force) change sign for certain spins and orbital radii. For eccentric orbits in the equatorial plane, we make use of the recently introduced method of extended homogeneous solutions to overcome the Gibbs phenomenon associated with a naive approach. As an application of our work we compute the shift to the innermost stable circular orbit due to the conservative piece of the scalar-field self-force for a variety of black hole spins. We also present some preliminary results for the SSF along circular, inclined geodesics. As well as studying the toy model SSF, we also consider the gravitational self-force (GSF) problem in the context of orbits around a Schwarzschild black hole. Our approach is again to work in the frequency domain, and we perform a complete decomposition of the metric perturbation
in tensor spherical harmonics and frequency modes. The ten metric perturbation fields decouple with respect to the multipole indices but remain coupled within each spherical harmonic mode. We solve the resulting coupled sets numerically with a code set up to run on a computer cluster. Regularization is again performed using the mode-sum technique. Our resulting code is extremely efficient for low eccentricity orbits, and using it we compute the GSF for a great many points in the orbital parameter space. With these results we fit an analytic model to our numerical data and then use a relativistic osculating elements scheme to evolve the orbital inspiral. This allows us, for the first time, to assess the contribution to a
complete inspiral from the conservative piece of the gravitational self-force. Finally, as an aside, we investigate the recently discovered phenomenon of isofrequency orbits, whereby it is possible to have pairs of physically distinct bound geodesics about a Kerr black
hole that share the same three orbital frequencies.

Text
Warburton-Thesis.pdf - Other
Download (4MB)

More information

Published date: 1 June 2012
Organisations: University of Southampton, Social Sciences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 167481
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/167481
PURE UUID: f611e676-0423-428d-a631-d6297108a518
ORCID for Leor Barack: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4742-9413

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 09 Oct 2012 13:30
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:49

Export record

Contributors

Author: Niels Jamie Warburton
Thesis advisor: Leor Barack ORCID iD

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×