Gravitational wave emission from a companion black hole in presence of an accretion disk around a super-massive Kerr black hole.

In this article we investigate the possible effects of the presence of the massive accretion disks on the gravitational wave emission properties of the extreme or intermediate mass ratio inspiralling black hole binaries. We chose a system in which a massive black hole (M = 105 M⊙) is orbiting a central super massive black hole (M = 108 M⊙) endowed with an accretion disk. We show that the drag exerted on the companion by the disk is sufficient to reduce the coalescence time of the binary. We find that the effect of the disk will be significant in reducing the coalescence time and this has to be incorporated to interprete gravitational wave signals emitted from such systems. Same effects should be seen for smaller mass companion also albeit at a smaller scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]