Extreme mass-ratio inspiral
Extreme mass ratio inspiral (or EMRI) events are the GW-driven inspiral of a “small” (1 - 100 solar mass) compact body into a massive (roughly million solar mass) black hole. The small body spends on the order of a year spiraling through the deep strong field of the large black hole. The waves this system generates in this year are particularly ornate, carrying (in principle) a detailed map of the characteristics of the strong-field spacetime of the large black hole. Regular (non-compact) stars in this mass range don’t work as well since they exhibit very strong tidal interactions with the big black hole, including full tidal disruption. Stars falling into black holes and disrupting are really interesting and important in astronomy, but aren’t our focus here.
The current version of this website presents two categories of EMRI events: circular EMRIs, describing events which are well-approximated by the smaller body evolving through a sequence of orbits with zero eccentricity; and generic EMRIs, describing events which are well-approximated by the smaller body evolving through a sequence of generic (inclined and eccentric) orbits of the larger black hole.
The links below take you to pages presenting some example sonified signals.