NONLINEAR GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE MEMORY FROM BINARY BLACK HOLE MERGERS
Open accessAbstract
Some astrophysical sources of gravitational waves can produce a "memory effect," which causes a permanent displacement of the test masses in a freely falling gravitational-wave detector. The Christodoulou memory is a particularly interesting nonlinear form of memory that arises from the gravitational-wave stress–energy tensor's contribution to the distant gravitational-wave field. This nonlinear memory contributes a nonoscillatory component to the gravitational-wave signal at leading (Newtonian-quadrupole) order in the waveform amplitude. Previous computations of the memory and its detectability considered only the inspiral phase of binary black hole coalescence. Using an "effective-one-body" (EOB) approach calibrated to numerical relativity simulations, as well as a simple fully analytic model, the Christodoulou memory is computed for the inspiral, merger, and ringdown. The memory will be very difficult to detect with ground-based interferometers, but is likely to be observable in supermassive black hole mergers with LISA out to redshifts z ≲ 2. Detection of the nonlinear memory could serve as an experimental test of the ability of gravity to "gravitate."
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For a binary black hole merger the contribution of the null memory is roughly 10^3 times larger than the ordinary memory.
“For a binary black hole merger the contribution of the null memory is roughly ∼ 10 3 times larger than the ordinary memory [22].”
From Gravitational memory and compact extra dimensions (2022) · cites this paper as [22]
The Introduction and Motivation distinguishes linear memory, which can occur in recoiling black holes, from the nonlinear memory studied for binary black hole mergers. Neither that section nor the retrieved passages comparing memory models gives a null-to-ordinary memory ratio; searches for a 10^3 comparison and recoil-related comparisons found none. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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Cites
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Gravitational memory and compact extra dimensions
Ferko, C., Satishchandran, G., & Sethi, S. (2022) · Physical Review D · doi:10.1103/physrevd.105.024072 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
- Authors
- Favata, M.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- Corresponding author
- Favata, Marc
- ORCID
- Favata, Marc
- Venue
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Published
- 2009-04-24
- Volume
- 696
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- L159-L162
- ISSN
- 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
- 1538-4357
- OpenAlex
- W2095233557
- Cited by
- 155
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 1.29
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Astrophysical Journal (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Black Holes and Theoretical Physics
- Keywords
- gravitational memory, nonlinear memory, binary black hole mergers, effective-one-body formalism, supermassive black hole mergers, LISA detectability, ringdown, gravitational wave detectors, tests of general relativity
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