A census of transient orbital resonances encountered during binary inspiral

Understand

Transient orbital resonances have recently been identified as potentially important to the inspiral of small bodies into large black holes.

• These resonances occur as the inspiral evolves through moments in which two fundamental orbital frequencies, $\Omega_\theta$ and $\Omega_r$, are in a small integer ratio to one another.
• Previous work has demonstrated that a binary's parameters are "kicked" each time the inspiral passes through a resonance, changing the orbit's characteristics relative to a model that neglects resonant effects.
• In this paper, we use exact Kerr geodesics coupled to an accurate but approximate model of inspiral to survey orbital parameter space and estimate how commonly one encounters long-lived orbital resonances.