Hybrid method for understanding black-hole mergers: Head-on case
- Creators
- Nichols, David A.
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Chen, Yanbei
Abstract
Black-hole-binary coalescence is often divided into three stages: inspiral, merger, and ringdown. The post-Newtonian (PN) approximation treats the inspiral phase, black-hole perturbation (BHP) theory describes the ringdown, and the nonlinear dynamics of space-time characterize the merger. In this paper, we introduce a hybrid method that incorporates elements of PN and BHP theories, and we apply it to the head-on collision of black holes with transverse, antiparallel spins. We compare our approximation technique with a full numerical-relativity simulation, and we find good agreement between the gravitational waveforms and the radiated energy and momentum. Our results suggest that PN and BHP theories may suffice to explain the main features of outgoing gravitational radiation for head-on mergers. This would further imply that linear perturbations to exact black-hole solutions can capture the nonlinear aspects of head-on binary-black-hole mergers accessible to observers far from the collision.
Additional Information
© 2010 American Physical Society. Received 12 July 2010; published 8 November 2010. We thank Geoffrey Lovelace and Uli Sperhake for supplying waveforms and energy-momentum fluxes from their numerical simulations; we thank Lee Lindblom, Mark Scheel, and Béla Szilágyi for advice on solving wave equations with characteristic methods. We thank Drew Keppel for his input in discussions during the early stage of this work, and we thank Kip S. Thorne and Yasushi Mino for discussing related aspects of black-hole physics with us. This work has been supported by NSF Grants No. PHY-0601459, No. PHY-0653653, and CAREER Grant No. PHY-0956189, by the David and Barbara Groce startup funds at the California Institute of Technology, and by the Brinson Foundation. D. N.'s research was supported by the David and Barbara Groce Graduate Research Assistantship at the California Institute of Technology.Attached Files
Published - Nichols2010p11998Phys_Rev_D.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 21277
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20101209-121855784
- PHY-0601459
- NSF
- PHY-0653653
- NSF
- PHY-0956189
- NSF CAREER
- Caltech David and Barbara Groce Fund
- Brinson Foundation
- Created
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2010-12-10Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- TAPIR