Inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms from gravitational self-force theory

Compact binaries with asymmetric mass ratios are key expected sources for next-generation gravitational-wave detectors. Gravitational self-force theory has been successful in producing post-adiabatic waveforms that describe the quasicircular inspiral around a nonspinning black hole with sub-radian accuracy, in remarkable agreement with numerical relativity simulations.

These models are based on a two-stage process, which makes waveform generation very efficient: in a (slow) offline stage, waveform ingredients are pre-computed as functions on the orbital phase space; in a (fast) online stage, the waveform is generated by evolving through the phase space.

Current inspiral models, however, break down at the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO), missing the final merger and ringdown stages. In this talk, I will show how the inspiral’s “phase-space” approach can be extended beyond the ISCO, building first-principles inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms within self-force theory, and I will compare these waveforms with a self-consistently calculated sum over quasinormal modes at late times. Finally, I will briefly discuss how beyond-GR effects can be modularly added in this framework. Based on arXiv:2405.00170, 2506.02189 and 2510.11793.