Enabling gravitational-wave astronomy with spin-precessing black holes on generic orbits
Abstract
Binary black holes (BBHs) formed in dense stellar environments or in hierarchical triples can coalesce on eccentric orbits and carry spins of arbitrary orientation, leaving distinctive imprints on their gravitational-wave (GW) emission. We present SEOBNRv6EPHM: the first generic-orbit, spin-precessing model in the effective-one-body SEOBNR family, whose waveforms have underpinned LIGO-Virgo GW analyses since 2011. The model describes the dynamics and multipolar GW signal of generic BBHs, covering the inspiral-merger-ringdown of coalescing binaries and extending to dynamical captures and scattering encounters. We perform the first systematic accuracy assessment of a generic-orbit model against numerical relativity (NR) waveforms of spin-precessing BBHs, using 1437 quasi-circular (QC) and 87 eccentric simulations: median waveform mismatches remain below 1 %, matching the accuracy of the QC model SEOBNRv5PHM, and improving on the state-of-the-art generic-orbit model TEOBResumS-Dalí by a median factor of $ 4 $. The model also reproduces the non-perturbative phenomenology observed in NR simulations of generic-spin BBH scattering. It is ∼ 2 − 3 times faster than SEOBNRv5PHM in the QC limit, and up to an order of magnitude faster than TEOBResumS-Dalí, bringing eccentric inference to the cost of current QC analyses. As a proof of principle, we analyze eleven GW events and focus on GW200129, strengthening its evidence for eccentricity − a result supported by injection-recovery studies with synthetic NR signals of eccentric, spin-precessing BBHs. SEOBNRv6EPHM thus enables, for the first time, accurate and efficient GW analyses that jointly account for eccentricity and spin precession.
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BibTeX
@misc{gamboa2026enabling,
title = {{Enabling gravitational-wave astronomy with spin-precessing black holes on generic orbits}},
author = {Aldo Gamboa and Lorenzo Pompili and Alessandra Buonanno and Luca Sebastiani and Raffi Enficiaud and Michael Boyle and Lawrence E. Kidder and Harald P. Pfeiffer and Antoni Ramos-Buades and Mark A. Scheel},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.01568},
eprint = {2609.01568},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01568},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Enabling gravitational-wave astronomy with spin-precessing black holes on generic orbits
AU - Aldo Gamboa
AU - Lorenzo Pompili
AU - Alessandra Buonanno
AU - Luca Sebastiani
AU - Raffi Enficiaud
AU - Michael Boyle
AU - Lawrence E. Kidder
AU - Harald P. Pfeiffer
AU - Antoni Ramos-Buades
AU - Mark A. Scheel
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.01568
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01568
AB - Binary black holes (BBHs) formed in dense stellar environments or in hierarchical triples can coalesce on eccentric orbits and carry spins of arbitrary orientation, leaving distinctive imprints on their gravitational-wave (GW) emission. We present SEOBNRv6EPHM: the first generic-orbit, spin-precessing model in the effective-one-body SEOBNR family, whose waveforms have underpinned LIGO-Virgo GW analyses since 2011. The model describes the dynamics and multipolar GW signal of generic BBHs, covering the inspiral-merger-ringdown of coalescing binaries and extending to dynamical captures and scattering encounters. We perform the first systematic accuracy assessment of a generic-orbit model against numerical relativity (NR) waveforms of spin-precessing BBHs, using 1437 quasi-circular (QC) and 87 eccentric simulations: median waveform mismatches remain below 1 %, matching the accuracy of the QC model SEOBNRv5PHM, and improving on the state-of-the-art generic-orbit model TEOBResumS-Dalí by a median factor of $ 4 $. The model also reproduces the non-perturbative phenomenology observed in NR simulations of generic-spin BBH scattering. It is ∼ 2 − 3 times faster than SEOBNRv5PHM in the QC limit, and up to an order of magnitude faster than TEOBResumS-Dalí, bringing eccentric inference to the cost of current QC analyses. As a proof of principle, we analyze eleven GW events and focus on GW200129, strengthening its evidence for eccentricity − a result supported by injection-recovery studies with synthetic NR signals of eccentric, spin-precessing BBHs. SEOBNRv6EPHM thus enables, for the first time, accurate and efficient GW analyses that jointly account for eccentricity and spin precession.
ER -