Computational efficiency of frequency- and time-domain calculations of extreme mass-ratio binaries: Equatorial orbits

Abstract

Gravitational waveforms and fluxes from extreme mass-ratio inspirals can be computed using time-domain methods with accuracy that is fast approaching that of frequency-domain methods. We study in detail the computational efficiency of these methods for equatorial orbits of fast spinning Kerr black holes, and find the number of modes needed in either method---as functions of the orbital parameters---in order to achieve a desired accuracy level. We then estimate the total computation time and argue that for high-eccentricity orbits the time-domain approach may be more efficient computationally. We suggest that in practice low-$m$ modes are computed using the frequency-domain approach, and high-$m$ modes are computed using the time-domain approach, where $m$ is the azimuthal mode number.