Hidden Momentum and Black Hole Kicks
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2015-06-15 v2 Classical Physics
Abstract
A stationary magnetic dipole immersed in an electric field carries "hidden" mechanical momentum. However, the fate of this momentum if the fields are turned off is unclear. We consider a charge-and-dipole hidden momentum configuration, and turn off the fields by collapsing a null shell onto the system, forming a black hole. In numerical calculations we find that the black hole receives a kick corresponding to 0.1% of the initial stored momentum. When extrapolated to apply to purely gravitational phenomena, this efficiency suggests a role for the hidden momentum kick mechanism in generating the binary black hole "superkicks" observed in numerical simulations of Einstein's equation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1303.7456,
title = {Hidden Momentum and Black Hole Kicks},
author = {Samuel E. Gralla and Frank Herrmann},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1303.7456},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
matches published version