A Systematic Study of Resonance-Driven Flux Modifications in Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals
Abstract
Transient orbital resonances can introduce phase-dependent corrections to the evolution of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs), potentially altering their long-term dynamics and emitted gravitational-wave signals. In this work, we quantify the resonance-induced modifications to the energy, axial angular momentum, and Carter constant fluxes and compute the corresponding resonance coefficients across a broad region of the orbital parameter space. Using the publicly available pybhpt code, we solve the Teukolsky equation in the frequency domain to coherently combine the degenerate radial and polar harmonics that arise at resonance. We analytically derive a selection rule governing the relative radial-polar phase dependence of the resonant flux modifications. We argue that the relative strength of the resonant flux modifications reflects a balance between symmetry-induced cancellations and the degree to which the resonant orbit samples the underlying two-dimensional orbital phase space. For the dynamically important 3:2 and 2:1 resonances, we also characterize how the resonance coefficients vary with the primary black-hole spin, orbital eccentricity and inclination. Our results constitute the largest set of Teukolsky-based resonance coefficients calculated to date and provide essential input for future studies of transient orbital resonances in EMRIs.
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BibTeX
@misc{levati2026systematic,
title = {{A Systematic Study of Resonance-Driven Flux Modifications in Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals}},
author = {Edoardo Levati and Lennox S. Keeble and Alejandro Cárdenas-Avendaño},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.25392},
eprint = {2609.25392},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25392},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Systematic Study of Resonance-Driven Flux Modifications in Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals
AU - Edoardo Levati
AU - Lennox S. Keeble
AU - Alejandro Cárdenas-Avendaño
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.25392
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25392
AB - Transient orbital resonances can introduce phase-dependent corrections to the evolution of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs), potentially altering their long-term dynamics and emitted gravitational-wave signals. In this work, we quantify the resonance-induced modifications to the energy, axial angular momentum, and Carter constant fluxes and compute the corresponding resonance coefficients across a broad region of the orbital parameter space. Using the publicly available pybhpt code, we solve the Teukolsky equation in the frequency domain to coherently combine the degenerate radial and polar harmonics that arise at resonance. We analytically derive a selection rule governing the relative radial-polar phase dependence of the resonant flux modifications. We argue that the relative strength of the resonant flux modifications reflects a balance between symmetry-induced cancellations and the degree to which the resonant orbit samples the underlying two-dimensional orbital phase space. For the dynamically important 3:2 and 2:1 resonances, we also characterize how the resonance coefficients vary with the primary black-hole spin, orbital eccentricity and inclination. Our results constitute the largest set of Teukolsky-based resonance coefficients calculated to date and provide essential input for future studies of transient orbital resonances in EMRIs.
ER -