Date of Award
2019
Degree Name
Physics
College
College of Science
Type of Degree
M.S.
Document Type
Thesis
First Advisor
Dr. Maria Hamilton, Committee Chairperson
Second Advisor
Dr. Que Huong Nguyen
Third Advisor
Dr. Andre Wehner
Abstract
The orbital evolution of black hole binaries is described by two main phases: the inspiral and the merger. Using the post-Newtonian (PN) theory for the inspiral phase of the binary, we build up a Mathematica script to obtain strain waveforms for the inspiral. We expand our previous inspiral formulation to include eccentric orbits, which greatly complicates the calculations. Since this model breaks down as the two bodies approach merger, a separate model for the merger and ring-down is required. This part of the evolution is highly non-linear and numerical relativity (NR) is required to simulate this problem. However, this is computationally expensive, so an effort to create an analytic formulation that gives results comparable to NR simulations is essential in gravitational wave modeling. Our previous work used the generic implicit rotating source (gIRS) formulation, but since then another analytic model has been introduced called the Backwards-one-body (BOB) approach. This model is chosen because it builds the waveform based on the physical principles of the problem. We build a BOB model and check to see how it compares with the gIRS model. A complete waveform is built by matching the merger models with the inspiral model when it begins to break down. We compare our model with the Simulating Extreme Spacetimes (SXS) data produced using numerical relativity simulations and find great agreement.
Subject(s)
Black holes (Astronomy)
General relativity (Physics)
Gravitation.
Recommended Citation
Buskirk, Dillon Paige, "Analytic modeling of eccentric binary black holes : from inspiral to merger" (2019). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. 1249.
https://mds.marshall.edu/etd/1249
