Colliding Black Holes: How Far Can the Close Approximation Go?

1996/09/09 by Reinaldo J. Gleiser, Reinaldo Gleiser, Carlos O. Nicasio +4 · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.77.4483

published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 77 (1996) 4483-4486 · 6 pages, RevTeX, 2 figures included with epsf

arxiv created 1996/09/09 · openalex publication_date 1996/11/25 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

We study the head-on collision of two equal-mass momentarily stationary black holes, using black hole perturbation theory up to second order. Compared to first-order results, this significantly improves agreement with numerically computed wave forms and energy. Much more important, second-order results correctly indicate the range of validity of perturbation theory. This use of second-order corrections to provide ``error bars'' to the first-order results makes perturbation theory a viable tool for providing benchmarks for numerical relativity in more generic collisions and, in some range of collision parameters, for supplying wave form templates for gravitational wave detection.

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