Abstract
We describe a special class of ballistic geodesics in Schwarzschild space-time, extending to the horizon in the infinite past and future of observer time, which are characterized by the property that they are in 1–1 correspondence, and completely degenerate in energy and angular momentum, with stable circular orbits. We derive analytic expressions for the source terms in the Regge–Wheeler and Zerilli–Moncrief equations for a point-particle moving on such a ballistic orbit, and compute the gravitational waves emitted during the infall in an extreme mass ratio black-hole binary coalescence. In this way a geodesic approximation to the plunge phase of compact binaries is obtained.
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