2013/04/30 by Abdul H. Mroue, Mark A. Scheel, Bela Szilagyi +14 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.111.241104
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 241104 (2013) · 6 pages; text clarified; additional results added
arxiv created 2013/12/18 · arxiv updated 2013/12/19
This paper presents a publicly available catalog of 174 numerical binary black-hole simulations following up to 35 orbits. The catalog includes 91 precessing binaries, mass ratios up to 8:1, orbital eccentricities from a few percent to 10-5, black-hole spins up to 98% of the theoretical maximum, and radiated energies up to 11.1% of the initial mass. We establish remarkably good agreement with post-Newtonian precession of orbital and spin directions for two new precessing simulations, and we discuss other applications of this catalog. Formidable challenges remain: e.g., precession complicates the connection of numerical and approximate analytical waveforms, and vast regions of the parameter space remain unexplored.