Post-Newtonian quasicircular initial orbits for numerical relativity

Abstract

We use post-Newtonian (PN) approximations to determine the initial orbital and spin parameters of black hole binaries that lead to low-eccentricity inspirals when evolved with numerical relativity techniques. In particular, we seek initial configurations that lead to very small eccentricities at small separations, as is expected for astrophysical systems. We consider three cases: (i) quasicircular orbits with no radial velocity, (ii) quasicircular orbits with an initial radial velocity determined by radiation reaction, and (iii) parameters obtained from evolution of the PN equations of motion from much larger separations. We study eight cases of spinning, nonprecessing, unequal mass binaries. We then use several definitions of the eccentricity, based on orbital separations and waveform phase and amplitude, and find that using the complete 3PN Hamiltonian for quasicircular orbits to obtain the tangential orbital momentum, and using the highest-known-order radiation reaction expressions to obtain the radial momentum, leads to the lowest eccentricity. The accuracy of this method even exceeds that of inspiral data based on 3PN and 4PN evolutions.