Black hole binary inspiral: Analysis of the plunge

Abstract

Binary black hole coalescence has its peak of gravitational wave generation during the "plunge," the transition from quasicircular early motion to late quasinormal ringing. Although advances in numerical relativity have provided plunge waveforms, there is still no intuitive or phenomenological understanding of plungecomparable to that of the early and late stages. Here we make progress in developing such understanding by focusing on the excitation of quasinormal ringing (QNR) during the plunge. We rely on insights of the linear mathematics of the particle perturbation model for the extreme mass limit. Our analysis, based on the Fourier domain Green function, and a simple initial model, point to the crucial role played by the kinematics near the "light ring" (the circular photon orbit) in determining the excitation of QNR. That insight is then shown to successfully explain Schwarzschild QNR found with evolution codes. Lastly, a phenomenological explanation is given for the underlying importance of the light ring.

Minor changes from the previous version have been made in this final version

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• On choosing the start time of binary black hole ringdown
• A Surrogate Model for Gravitational Wave Signals from Comparable- to Large- Mass-Ratio Black Hole Binaries
• Black Hole Ringing, Quasinormal Modes, and Light Rings
• Exciting black hole modes via misaligned coalescences: II. The mode content of late-time coalescence waveforms
• Gravitational wave sources: reflections and echoes
• Gravitational tuning forks and hierarchical triple systems
• Dynamical quasinormal mode excitation
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• Electromagnetic radiation generated by a charged particle plunging into a Schwarzschild black hole: Multipolar waveforms and ringdowns
• Arrival Times of Gravitational Radiation Peaks for Binary Inspiral