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The high-energy collision of two black holes

U. Sperhake, V. Cardoso, F. Pretorius, E. Berti, J. A. Gonzalez

TL;DR

This work studies the head-on collision of two highly boosted equal mass, nonrotating black holes and determines the waveforms, radiated energies, and mode excitation in the center of mass frame for a variety of boosts.

Abstract

We study the head-on collision of two highly boosted equal mass, nonrotating black holes. We determine the waveforms, radiated energies, and mode excitation in the center of mass frame for a variety of boosts. For the first time we are able to compare analytic calculations, black hole perturbation theory, and strong field, nonlinear numerical calculations for this problem. Extrapolation of our results, which include velocities of up to 0.94c, indicate that in the ultra-relativistic regime about (14\pm 3)% of the energy is converted into gravitational waves. This gives rise to a luminosity of order 10^-2 c^5/G, the largest known so far in a black hole merger.

The high-energy collision of two black holes

TL;DR

This work studies the head-on collision of two highly boosted equal mass, nonrotating black holes and determines the waveforms, radiated energies, and mode excitation in the center of mass frame for a variety of boosts.

Abstract

We study the head-on collision of two highly boosted equal mass, nonrotating black holes. We determine the waveforms, radiated energies, and mode excitation in the center of mass frame for a variety of boosts. For the first time we are able to compare analytic calculations, black hole perturbation theory, and strong field, nonlinear numerical calculations for this problem. Extrapolation of our results, which include velocities of up to 0.94c, indicate that in the ultra-relativistic regime about (14\pm 3)% of the energy is converted into gravitational waves. This gives rise to a luminosity of order 10^-2 c^5/G, the largest known so far in a black hole merger.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 2 equations, 3 figures, 1 table.

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Dominant multipolar component $\psi_{20}(t-r)$ for different values of $\beta$, as indicated in the inset.
  • Figure 2: Energy spectrum for $l=2$ and different values of $\beta$. Horizontal lines are the corresponding ZFL-PP predictions, vertical lines are the QNM frequencies of the final BH.
  • Figure 3: Total radiated energy (including error bars) as a function of $\beta$, and best fit using the ZFL prediction.