Fate of chaotic binaries

A typical stellar mass black hole with a lighter companion is shown to succumb to a chaotic precession of the orbital plane. The chaotic behavior is identified in the conservative system since there is no clear way to do so when dissipation is included and all binaries merge. The precession and the subsequent modulation of the gravitational radiation depend on the mass ratio, eccentricity, and spins. The smaller the mass of the companion, the more prominent the effect of the precession. The most important parameters are the spin magnitudes and misalignments. If the spins are small and nearly aligned with the orbital angular momentum, then there will be no chaotic precession, while increasing both the spin magnitudes and misalignments increases the erratic precession. A large eccentricity can be induced by large, misaligned spins but does not seem to be required for chaos. When dissipation due to gravitational radiation is included chaos is damped, but a further study is needed to determine if dissipation will erase all traces of chaos or if an imprint of irregularity survives.