Measuring mass moments and electromagnetic moments of a massive, axisymmetric body, through gravitational waves

Abstract

The electrovacuum around a rotating massive body with electric charge density is described by its multipole moments (mass moments, mass‐current moments, electric moments, and magnetic moments). A small uncharged test particle orbiting around such a body moves on geodesics if gravitational radiation is ignored. The waves emitted by the small body carry information about the geometry of the central object, and hence, in principle, we can infer all its multipole moments. Due to its axisymmetry the source is characterized now by four families of scalar multipole moments: its mass moments Ml, its mass‐current moments Sl, its electrical moments El and its magnetic moments Hl, where l 0 1 2,…. Four measurable quantities, the energy emitted by gravitational waves per logarithmic interval of frequency, the precession of the periastron (assuming almost circular orbits), the precession of the orbital plane (assuming almost equatorial orbits), and the number of cycles emitted per logarithmic interval of frequency, are presented as power series of the newtonian orbital velocity of the test body. The power series coefficients are simple polynomials of the various moments.