The Combined Effects of Two-Body Relaxation Processes and the Eccentric Kozai-Lidov Mechanism on the EMRI Rate

Understand

Gravitational wave (GW) emissions from extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) are promising sources for low-frequency GW-detectors.

• They result from a compact object, such as a stellar-mass black-hole (BH), captured by a supermassive black hole (SMBH).
• Several physical processes have been proposed to form EMRIs.
• In particular, weak two-body interactions over a long time scale (i.e., relaxation processes) have been proposed as a likely mechanism to drive the BH orbit to high eccentricity.