English

The influence of the mean anomaly on the dynamical quantities of binary black hole mergers in eccentric orbits

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2025-10-10 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

In studies of binary black hole (BBH) mergers in eccentric orbits, the mean anomaly, traditionally regarded as less significant than eccentricity, has been thought to encode only the orbital phase, leading to the assumption that it exerts minimal influence on the dynamics of eccentric mergers. In a previous investigation, we identified consistent oscillations in dynamical quantities peak luminosity LpeakL_{\text{peak}}, remnant mass MremM_{\text{rem}}, spin αrem\alpha_{\text{rem}}, and recoil velocity VremV_{\text{rem}} in relation to the initial eccentricity e0e_0. These oscillations are associated with integer orbital cycles within a phenomenological framework. In this paper, we aim to explore the underlying physical nature of these oscillations through gravitational waveforms. Our examination of remnant mass and spin reveals that while the initial ADM mass MADMM_{\mathrm{ADM}} and orbital angular momentum L0L_0 exhibit gradual variations with e0e_0, the radiated energy EradE_{\text{rad}} and angular momentum LradL_{\text{rad}} display oscillatory patterns akin to those observed in MremM_{\text{rem}} and αrem\alpha_{\text{rem}}. By decomposing the waveforms into three distinct phases inspiral, late inspiral to merger, and ringdown, we demonstrate that these oscillations persist across all phases, suggesting a common origin. Through a comparative analysis of EradE_{\text{rad}} and LradL_{\text{rad}} derived from numerical relativity (NR), post-Newtonian (PN) waveforms, and orbital-averaged PN fluxes during the inspiral phase, we identify the initial mean anomaly l0l_0 as the source of the observed oscillations. ...

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.08105,
  title  = {The influence of the mean anomaly on the dynamical quantities of binary black hole mergers in eccentric orbits},
  author = {Hao Wang and Bin Liu and Yuan-Chuan Zou and Qing-Wen Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.08105},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

21 pages, 13 figures, published on PRD