Efficient Eccentric Effective-One-Body Dynamics via Near-Identity Averaging Transformations

Abstract

Next-generation gravitational-wave detectors, such as LISA, the Einstein Telescope, and Cosmic Explorer, will require accurate and efficient models of long-lived black-hole binary signals, including those with significant eccentricity. A challenge for eccentric effective-one-body models is the cost of resolving rapidly oscillating orbital dynamics over the inspiral, particularly for low mass and large mass-ratio systems. We address this by recasting the nonspinning eccentric effective-one-body equations of motion in terms of osculating orbital elements and then applying near-identity averaging transformations to eliminate the fast orbital-timescale structure during the inspiral. Each order in this procedure suppresses the oscillatory behavior by one factor of the ratio of orbital to radiation-reaction timescales. The resulting averaged dynamics are evolved on the radiation-reaction timescale and then the system is mapped back to the full EOB dynamics for the final transition to plunge. This reduces the cost of the inspiral dynamics by up to two orders of magnitude, eliminating this as the primary bottleneck for long waveforms. The overall waveform-generation speed-up spans $1.5 - 8 \times$, motivating the development of more efficient waveform generation methods. We also validate the accuracy of the method by comparing waveforms generated from the averaged and full effective-one-body dynamics across a broad region of parameter space for moderate to large eccentricities. Carrying out this averaging procedure to next-to-next-to-leading-order is needed to accurately model comparable-mass binaries, yielding mismatches $\leq 8.05 \times 10^{-5}$. These results establish near-identity averaging as a practical route to efficient eccentric effective-one-body inspirals, and provide a foundation for further extensions to low-eccentricity and spinning waveform models.