The merger of small and large black holes
Abstract
We present simulations of binary black-hole mergers in which, after the common outer horizon has formed, the marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTSs) corresponding to the individual black holes continue to approach and eventually penetrate each other. This has very interesting consequences according to recent results in the theory of MOTSs. Uniqueness and stability theorems imply that two MOTSs which touch with a common outer normal must be identical. This suggests a possible dramatic consequence of the collision between a small and large black hole. If the penetration were to continue to completion, then the two MOTSs would have to coalesce, by some combination of the small one growing and the big one shrinking. Here we explore the relationship between theory and numerical simulations, in which a small black hole has halfway penetrated a large one.
Additional Information
© 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd. Received 22 January 2015, revised 9 September 2015. Accepted for publication 23 September 2015. Published 6 November 2015. We have benefited from discussions with B Krishnan and E Schnetter. JW's research was supported by NSF grant PHY-1201276 to the University of Pittsburgh. PM and BS were supported by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and NSF grants PHY-1440083, AST-1333520 and AST-1212170 at Caltech.Attached Files
Submitted - 1501.05358v1.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 63311
- DOI
- 10.1088/0264-9381/32/23/235003
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20160104-075213932
- PHY-1201276
- NSF
- Sherman Fairchild Foundation
- PHY-1440083
- NSF
- AST-1333520
- NSF
- AST-1212170
- NSF
- Created
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2016-01-04Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-07-12Created from EPrint's last_modified field