Gravitational wave signatures from periodic orbits around a Schwarzschild-Bertotti-Robinson black hole

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Authors: Tursunali Xamidov, Sanjar Shaymatov, Qiang Wu, Tao Zhu
Cited by: 1

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate periodic bound orbits and gravitational wave (GW) emission in the Schwarzschild-Bertotti-Robinson (Schwarzschild-BR) spacetime-an exact electrovacuum solution describing a static black hole (BH) immersed in a uniform magnetic field. We explore how the background magnetic field qualitatively alters the BH's gravitational dynamics, affecting timelike geodesics such as the marginally bound orbit (MBO) and the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO). We then analyze periodic bound orbits using the frequency ratio ${ω_φ}/{ω_{r}}$, which characterizes the orbits by their azimuthal and radial motions. Based on the numerical kludge method we further compute the gravitational waveforms emitted from periodic orbits around a supermassive Schwarzschild-BR BH. We show that the background magnetic field significantly changes orbital frequencies, resonance conditions, zoom-whirl structures, and the resulting waveforms. Finally, we examine the frequency spectra in the mHz range and the detectability of these GW signals by computing the characteristic strain via a discrete Fourier transform on the time-domain waveforms, comparing the results with the sensitivity curves of space-based GW detectors such as LISA, Taiji, and TianQin. Our results show that intrinsically magnetic fields modify spacetime and leave observable imprints on extreme mass-ratio inspiral GWs, which may be tested by future observations.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research Relativity and Gravitational Theory

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
10 February 2026
Document type
Preprint