Emission of gravitational waves by precession of slim accretion disks dynamically driven by the Bardeen‐Petterson effect

Abstract

AbstractThe electromagnetic radiation emitted from some astro‐physical objects such as active galactic nuclei (AGN), microquasars (M‐QSRs), and central engines of gamma‐ray burst (GRBs), seems to have a similar physical origin: a powerful jet of plasma ejected from a localized system, presumably composed of an accretion disk encircling a compact object. This radiation is generally beamed in the polar directions and in some cases, it appears to have a spiral‐like structure that could be explained if the central system itself precesses. In this work, we use the slim disk accretion model, presented by Popham et al. (1999), to studying the gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by the precession of the accretion disk around a solar‐mass Kerr black hole (KBH). For practical purposes, this model describes the central engine of a class of GRBs when some astro‐physical constrains are fulfilled. The induced precession considered here is driven by the Bardeen‐Petterson effect, which results from the combination of viscous effects in such disks and the relativistic frame‐dragging effect. We evaluate the feasibility of direct detection of the GWs computed for such a model and show that the precession of this kind of systems could be detected by gravitational wave observatories like DECIGO, ultimate‐DECIGO, and BBO, with higher probability if such a class of sources are placed at distances less than 1 Mpc. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)