Inferring interference: Identifying a perturbing tertiary with eccentric gravitational wave burst timing

Romero-Shaw, Isobel, Loutrel, Nicholas and Zevin, Michael 2023. Inferring interference: Identifying a perturbing tertiary with eccentric gravitational wave burst timing. Physical Review D 107 , 122001. 10.1103/physrevd.107.122001

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Abstract

Binary black holes may form and merge dynamically. These binaries are likely to become bound with high eccentricities, resulting in a burst of gravitational radiation at their point of closest approach. When such a binary is perturbed by a third body, the evolution of the orbit is affected, and gravitational-wave burst times are altered. The bursts times therefore encode information about the tertiary. In order to extract this information, we require a prescription for the relationship between the tertiary properties and the gravitational-wave burst times. In this paper, we demonstrate a toy model for the burst times of a secular three-body system. We show how Bayesian inference can be employed to deduce the tertiary properties when the bursts are detected by next-generation ground-based gravitational-wave detectors.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	Erratum for this article can be seen here: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.111.029902
Publisher:	American Physical Society
ISSN:	1550-7998
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	19 February 2026
Date of Acceptance:	22 May 2023
Last Modified:	19 Feb 2026 15:14
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/185053

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