Eur. Phys. J. C (2014) 74:2840
DOI 10.1140/epjc/s10052-014-2840-4
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Self-gravitating ring of matter in orbit around a black hole:
the innermost stable circular orbit
Shahar Hod
1,2,a
1
The Ruppin Academic Center, Emeq Hefer 40250, Israel
2
The Hadassah Institute, Jerusalem 91010, Israel
Received: 2 February 2014 / Accepted: 27 March 2014 / Published online: 11 April 2014
© The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract We study analytically a black-hole-ring system
which is composed of a stationary axisymmetric ring of par-
ticles in orbit around a perturbed Kerr black hole of mass M.
In particular, we calculate the shift in the orbital frequency
of the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) due to the finite
mass m of the orbiting ring. It is shown that for t hin rings of
half-thickness r M, the dominant finite-mass correction
to the characteristic ISCO frequency stems from the self-
gravitational potential energy of the ring (a term in the energy
budget of the system which is quadratic in the mass m of the
ring). This dominant correction to the ISCO frequency is of
order O(μ ln(M/r)), where μ ≡ m/M is the dimensionless
mass of the ring. We show that the ISCO frequency increases
(as compared to the ISCO frequency of an orbiting test-ring)
due to the finite-mass effects of the self-gravitating ring.
1 Introduction
The geodesic motions of test particles in black-hole space-
times are an important source of information on the structure
of the spacetime geometry [1–11]. Of particular importance
is the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO). This orbit is
defined by the onset of a dynamical instability for circular
geodesics. In particular, the ISCO separates stable circular
orbits from orbits that plunge into the central black hole [2].
This special geodesic therefore plays a central role in the
two-body dynamics of in-spiralling compact binaries since
it marks the critical point where the character of the motion
sharply changes [5]. In addition, this marginally stable orbit
is usually regarded as the inner edge of accretion disks in
composed black-hole-disk systems [2].
An important physical quantity which characterizes the
ISCO is the orbital angular frequency
isco
as measured by
asymptotic observers. This characteristic frequency is often
regarded as the end-point of the in-spiral gravitational tem-
a
e-mail: shaharhod@gmail.com
plates [5]. For a test particle in the Schwarzschild-black-hole
spacetime, this frequency is given by the well-known relation
[1–11]
M
isco
= 6
−3/2
, (1)
where M is the mass of the central black hole.
Realistic astrophysical scenarios often involve a com-
posed two-body system in which the mass m of the orbiting
object is smaller but non-negligible as compared to the mass
M of the central black hole [5]. In these situations the zeroth-
order (test-particle) approximation is no longer valid and one
should take into account the gravitational self-force (GSF)
corrections to the orbit [12–26]. These first-order corrections
take into account the finite mass m of the orbiting object. The
gravitational self-force has two distinct contributions: (1) It
is responsible for dissipative (radiation-reaction) effects that
cause the orbiting particle to emit gravitational waves. The
location of the ISCO may become blurred due to these non-
conservative effects [5,12,13]. (2) The self-force due to the
finite mass of the particle is also responsible for conserva-
tive effects which preserve the characteristic constants of the
orbital motion. These conservative effects produce a non-
trivial shift in the ISCO frequency, which characterizes the
two-body dynamics.
It should be emphasized that the computation of the con-
servative shift in the characteristic ISCO frequency (due to
the finite mass of the orbiting object) is a highly non-trivial
task. A notable event in the history of the two-body prob-
lem in general relativity took place three years ago: after two
decades of intensive efforts by many groups of researches to
evaluate the conservative self-force corrections to the orbital
parameters, Barack and Sago [23,24] have succeeded in com-
puting the shift in the ISCO frequency due to the finite mass
of the orbiting object. Their numerical result for the corrected
ISCO frequency can be expressed in the form [22–24]
M
isco
= 6
−3/2
(1 + c · μ) with c 0.251, (2)
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