MG13 - Talk detail

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Extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs) are one of the most interesting astrophysical sources of gravitational waves due to what their waveforms can indicate both about general relativity (GR), but also their environs. The conventional source of EMRIs is stellar-mass black holes which reach high eccentricity orbits through a series of serendipitous stellar scatterings. However, interactions of a stellar-mass black hole with {\it any} perturber could potentially produce an EMRI. We consider here compact objects in a relaxed stellar cusp with central super-massive black hole (SMBH) reacting to a secondary SMBH inspiraling through the cusp to its stalling radius. We find that: 1) this process produces approximately 0.001 EMRIs per year per Gpc^3 from stellar mass black holes and 2) the EMRI formation requires a balance between the Kozai mechanism, precession due to the stellar potential, and general relativistic effects. We outline the relevant physics to the formation process including the essential, but frequently overlooked, oscillations of the orbital elements occurring on the secondary SMBH's orbital timescale (along with the Kozai oscillations).

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