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arXiv · 0803.4482

The transition from adiabatic inspiral to geodesic plunge for a compact object around a massive Kerr black hole: Generic orbits

Pranesh A. Sundararajan
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Abstract

The inspiral of a stellar mass compact object falling into a massive Kerr black hole can be broken into three different regimes: An adiabatic inspiral phase, where the inspiral timescale is much larger than the orbital period; a late-time radial infall, which can be approximated as a plunging geodesic; and a regime where the body transitions from the inspiral to plunge. In earlier work, Ori and Thorne have outlined a method to compute the trajectory during this transition for a compact object in a circular, equatorial orbit. We generalize this technique to include inclination and eccentricity.

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Pranesh A. Sundararajan. 2008-05-08. The transition from adiabatic inspiral to geodesic plunge for a compact object around a massive Kerr black hole: Generic orbits. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.77.124050

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