Related papers: Comparison of Numerical and Post-Newtonian Wavefor…
Binary black holes with spins that are aligned with the orbital angular momentum do not precess. However, post-Newtonian calculations predict that "up-down" binaries, in which the spin of the heavier (lighter) black hole is aligned…
Gravitational waves from the coalescence of two black holes carry the signature of the strong field dynamics of binary black holes. In this work we have used numerical relativity simulations and post-Newtonian theory to investigate this…
We investigate the (conservative) dynamics of binary black holes using the Hamiltonian formulation of the post-Newtonian (PN) equations of motion. The Hamiltonian we use includes spin-orbit coupling, spin-spin coupling, and mass…
Binary black hole simulations starting from quasi-circular (i.e., zero radial velocity) initial data have orbits with small but non-zero orbital eccentricities. In this paper the quasi-equilibrium initial-data method is extended to allow…
We study the spin dynamics of individual black holes in a binary system. In particular we focus on the polar precession of spins and the possibility of a complete flip of spins with respect to the orbital plane. We perform a full numerical…
Accurate modelling of black hole binaries is critical to achieve the science goals of gravitational-wave detectors. Modelling such configurations relies strongly on calibration to numerical-relativity (NR) simulations. Binaries on…
Post-Newtonian (PN) theory provides the analytic foundation for modeling the early inspiral of binary black holes. However, as an asymptotic series, successive PN orders do not necessarily improve agreement with the full nonlinear dynamics.…
Gravitational waves from precessing black-hole binaries exhibit features that are absent in nonprecessing systems. The most prominent of these is a parity-violating asymmetry that beams energy and linear momentum preferentially along or…
We integrate the third and a half post-Newtonian equations of motion for a fully generic binary black hole system, allowing both for non-circular orbits, and for one or both of the black holes to spin, in any orientation. Using the second…
While current gravitational wave observations with ground based detectors have been consistent with compact binaries in quasi-circular orbits, eccentric binaries may be detectable by ground-based and space-based instruments in the near…
Gravitational waves from coalescing binary black holes encode the evolution of their spins prior to merger. In the post-Newtonian regime and on the precession timescale, this evolution has one of three morphologies, with the spins either…
We present a new phenomenological gravitational waveform model for the inspiral and coalescence of non-precessing spinning black hole binaries. Our approach is based on a frequency domain matching of post-Newtonian inspiral waveforms with…
For black-hole binaries whose spins are (anti-) aligned with respect to the orbital angular momentum of the binary, we compute the frequency domain phasing coefficients including the quadratic-in-spin terms up to the third post-Newtonian…
We analyze the spherical harmonic mode amplitudes of quasicircular, nonprecessing binary black hole mergers using 275 numerical relativity simulations from the SXS, RIT, and MAYA catalogs. We construct fits using the leading-order…
Using a post-Newtonian diagnostic tool developed by Mora and Will, we examine numerically generated quasiequilibrium initial data sets that have been used in recently successful numerical evolutions of binary black holes through plunge,…
We present the first fully-nonlinear numerical study of the dynamics of highly spinning black-hole binaries. We evolve binaries from quasicircular orbits (as inferred from Post-Newtonian theory), and find that the last stages of the orbital…
There is a high level of interest in black hole-neutron star binaries, not only because their mergers may be detected by gravitational wave observatories in the coming years, but also because of the possibility that they could explain a…
The inspiral of a circular, non-precessing binary exhibits an approximate helical symmetry. The effects of eccentricity, precession, and radiation reaction break the exact symmetry. We estimate the failure of this symmetry using the flux of…
The inspiral of binary black holes is governed by gravitational radiation reaction at binary separations r < 1000 M, yet it is too computationally expensive to begin numerical-relativity simulations with initial separations r > 10 M.…
We present numerically-informed closed-form expressions for the dominant $(\ell,m)=(2,2)$ waveform harmonic of the post-merger emission from mergers of non-spinning binary black holes with comparable masses on highly eccentric orbits. Using…