  Modeling of gravitational waves (GWs) from binary black hole inspiral brings
together early post-Newtonian waveforms and late quasinormal ringing waveforms.
Attempts to bridge the two limits without recourse to numerical relativity
involve predicting the time of the peak GW amplitude. This prediction will
require solving the question of why the peak of the "source," i.e., the peak of
the binary angular velocity, does not correspond to the peak of the GW
amplitude. We show here that this offset can be understood as due to the
existence two distinct components of the radiation: the "direct" radiation
analogous to that in flat spacetime, and "scattered" radiation associated with
curved spacetime. The time dependence of these two components, and of their
relative phases determines the location of the peak amplitude. We use a highly
simplified model to clarify the twocomponent nature of the source, then
demonstrate that the explanation is valid also for an extreme mass ratio binary
inspiral.
