GWMODELS. Next-generation models of gravitational-wave sources: harnessing the small-mass-ratio limit

我们现在已经进入引力波天文学时代六年了。在运行时，LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA探测器网络每周大约观测到一个信号，每个信号都是由两个紧密天体的戏剧性激励和合并产生的。我们第一次能够在最极端的情况下观察两体问题，并探索形成这些系统的强引力物体--黑洞和中子星--的性质。其中，这揭示了一个充满黑洞的宇宙。但探测和解释引力波信号需要高度精确的理论模型。未来的(甚至是现在的)探测器需要对这些模型进行至关重要的改进，特别是在一个重要的系统中：具有巨大质量差异的双星系统，其中一个物体的重量是另一个物体的数千万倍。这些系统包含关于黑洞的性质、它们的历史和广义相对论有效性的独特信息宝库，但它们目前还没有很好的建模。我的ERC计划将使用一种称为自力理论的微扰方法，提供第一个完整的、准确的小质量比双星模型，其中小质量与大质量的比例被视为一个小参数。这一模型将远远超越我最近取得的突破性进展，通过考虑偏心率、两个物体的自转、平面进动、轨道共振、最终合并、以及可能的环境影响和偏离广义相对论，远远超出了我最近取得的突破性成果--后绝热自力波形。通过利用小质量比极限的独特力量，我的团队还将在后明可夫斯基理论和黑洞散射、潮汐变形体和加速数值相对论模拟的新方法，以及在建立相对论两体问题的通用模型方面取得新的进展。这将提供下一代引力波科学至关重要的一系列进展。

We are now six years into the age of gravitational-wave astronomy. When operating, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network of detectors observe roughly one signal every week, each one generated by the dramatic inspiral and merger of two compact objects. For the first time, we are able to observe the two-body problem in its most extreme regime and probe the nature of the strongly gravitating objects -- black holes and neutron stars -- that form these systems. Among other things, this has unveiled a universe teeming with black holes.But detecting and interpreting gravitational-wave signals requires highly accurate theoretical models. Future (and even current) detectors demand vital improvements to those models, particularly in one important regime: binaries with a large mass disparity, in which one object is tens to millions of times heavier than the other. These systems contain a unique trove of information about the nature of black holes, their history, and the validity of general relativity, but they are currently not well modelled.My ERC programme will provide the first complete, accurate model of small-mass-ratio binaries, using a perturbative method called self-force theory, in which the ratio of small mass to large mass is treated as a small parameter. This model will go far beyond my recent breakthrough "post-adiabatic" self-force waveforms by accounting for eccentricity, the spin of both bodies, planar precession, orbital resonances, the final merger, and possible environmental effects and deviations from general relativity. By exploiting the unique power of the small-mass-ratio limit, my team will also make new inroads in post-Minkowskian theory and black hole scattering; in tidally deformed bodies and a novel method of accelerating numerical relativity simulations; and in building a universal model of the relativistic two-body problem. This will provide a host of the advances that are critically needed for next-generation gravitational-wave science.