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Gravitational-wave modes from precessing black-hole binaries

6 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.

6 Pith papers citing it
abstract

Gravitational waves from precessing black-hole binaries exhibit features that are absent in nonprecessing systems. The most prominent of these is a parity-violating asymmetry that beams energy and linear momentum preferentially along or opposite to the orbital angular momentum, leading to recoil of the binary. The asymmetry will appear as amplitude and phase modulations at the orbital frequency. For strongly precessing systems, it accounts for at least 3% amplitude modulation for binaries in the sensitivity band of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors, and can exceed 50% for massive systems. Such asymmetric features are also clearly visible when the waves are decomposed into modes of spin-weighted spherical harmonics, and are inherent in the waves themselves---rather than resulting from residual eccentricity in numerical simulations, or from mode-mixing due to precession. In particular, there is generically no instantaneous frame for which the mode decomposition will have any symmetry. We introduce a method to simplify the expressions for waveforms given in analytical relativity, which can be used to combine existing high-order waveforms for nonprecessing systems with expressions for the precessing contributions, leading to improved accuracy and a unified treatment of precessing and nonprecessing binaries. Using this method, it is possible to clarify the nature and the origins of the asymmetries and show the effects of asymmetry on recoils more clearly. We present post-Newtonian (PN) expressions for the waveform modes that include these terms, complete to the relative 2PN level in spin (proportional to $v^4/c^4$ times a certain combination of the spins). Comparing the results of those expressions to numerical results, we find good qualitative agreement. We also demonstrate how these expressions can be used to efficiently calculate waveforms for gravitational-wave astronomy.

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2026 6

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representative citing papers

Polarization Analysis of Ringdown Signals

gr-qc · 2026-05-14 · conditional · novelty 6.0

Constrained polarization model for Kerr ringdown modes enables inclination inference from two-detector data for non-precessing mergers but introduces biases when applied to precessing systems.

Toward claiming a detection of gravitational memory

gr-qc · 2026-01-30 · unverdicted · novelty 6.0

A framework using scale separation in the Isaacson description defines observable gravitational memory rise for compact binary coalescences, providing a basis for hypothesis testing in LISA data.

Remnant recoil and host environments of GWTC-4.0 binary black-hole mergers

astro-ph.HE · 2026-04-07 · unverdicted · novelty 4.0

Five O4 gravitational-wave events prefer dynamical cluster formation; typical recoil kicks eject remnants from globular clusters but allow possible retention in nuclear star clusters, disfavoring efficient hierarchical growth in globular clusters.

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