Binary black hole mergers: Large kicks for generic spin orientations

2007/03/13 by Wolfgang Tichy, Pedro Marronetti · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Binary number #Black hole (networking) #Condensed matter physics #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Geometry #Mass ratio #Orbital plane #Physics #Plane (geometry) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spin-flip #Spins #astro-ph #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.76.061502

published as Phys.Rev.D76:061502,2007 · 5 pages, 3 figures, to be submitted to PRD

arxiv created 2007/03/13 · openalex publication_date 2007/09/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We present results from several simulations of equal mass black holes with spin. The spin magnitudes are S/m²=0.8 in all cases, but we vary the spin orientations arbitrarily, inside and outside the orbital plane. We find that in all but one case the final merged black hole acquires a kick of more than 1000 km/s, indicating that kicks of this magnitude are likely to be generic and should be expected for mergers with general spin orientations. The maximum kick velocity we find is 2500 km/s and occurs for initial spins which are antialigned in the initial orbital plane.

Citations

• The Effect of Gravitational-Wave Recoil on the Demography of Massive Black Holes
• Large Merger Recoils and Spin Flips From Generic Black-Hole Binaries
• Gauge conditions for binary black hole puncture data based on an approximate helical Killing vector
• Binary black hole initial data for numerical general relativity based on post-Newtonian data
• Black-hole puncture initial data with realistic gravitational wave content
• Quasiequilibrium binary black hole sequences for puncture data derived from helical Killing vector conditions
• Supermassive Recoil Velocities for Binary Black-Hole Mergers with Antialigned Spins

Cited by

• The stochastic gravitational-wave background from massive black hole binary systems: implications for observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays