2001/08/31 by Gregory B. Cook · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.65.084003
published as Phys.Rev. D65 (2002) 084003 · 13 pages, no figures, revtex4; Content changed slightly to reflect fact that regularized shift solutions do satisfy the isometry boundary conditions
arxiv created 2001/09/04 · openalex publication_date 2002/03/08 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A complete formalism for constructing initial data representing black-hole binaries in quasi-equilibrium is developed. Radiation reaction prohibits, in general, true equilibrium binary configurations. However, when the time scale for orbital decay is much longer than the orbital period, a binary can be considered to be in quasiequilibrium. If each black hole is assumed to be in quasiequilibrium, then a complete set of boundary conditions for all initial data variables can be developed. These boundary conditions are applied on the apparent horizon of each black hole, and in fact force a specified surface to be an apparent horizon. A global assumption of quasiequilibrium is also used to fix some of the freely specifiable pieces of the initial data and to uniquely fix the asymptotic boundary conditions. This formalism should allow for the construction of completely general quasiequilibrium black hole binary initial data.