Gravitational wave signals from a chaotic system: A point mass with a disk

We study gravitational waves from a particle moving around a system of a point mass with a disk in Newtonian gravitational theory. A particle motion in this system can be chaotic when the gravitational contribution from a surface density of a disk is comparable with that from a point mass. In such an orbit, we sometimes find that there appears a phase in which particle motion becomes nearly regular (so-called “stagnant motion” or stickiness) for a finite time interval between more strongly chaotic phases. To study how these different chaotic behaviors affect observation of gravitational waves, we investigate a correlation of the particle motion and the waves. We find that such a difference in chaotic motions reflects on the wave forms and energy spectra. The character of the waves in the stagnant motion is quite different from that either in a regular motion or in a more strongly chaotic motion. This suggests that we may make a distinction between different chaotic behaviors of the orbit via the gravitational waves.