Related papers: Revisiting Event Horizon Finders
Black-hole-binary coalescence is often divided into three stages: inspiral, merger and ringdown. The post-Newtonian (PN) approximation treats the inspiral phase, black-hole perturbation (BHP) theory describes the ringdown, and the nonlinear…
We examine the structure of the event horizon for numerical simulations of two black holes that begin in a quasicircular orbit, inspiral, and finally merge. We find that the spatial cross section of the merged event horizon has spherical…
We introduce the concept of a geometric horizon, which is a surface distinguished by the vanishing of certain curvature invariants which characterize its special algebraic character. We motivate its use for the detection of the event…
Recent advances in numerical relativity have revealed how marginally trapped surfaces behave when black holes merge. It is now known that interesting topological features emerge during the merger, and marginally trapped surfaces can have…
This paper presents a quasi-local method of studying the physics of dynamical black holes in numerical simulations. This is done within the dynamical horizon framework, which extends the earlier work on isolated horizons to time-dependent…
In a binary black hole merger, it is known that the inspiral portion of the waveform corresponds to two distinct horizons orbiting each other, and the merger and ringdown signals correspond to the final horizon being formed and settling…
While the early literature on black holes focused on event horizons, subsequently it was realized that their teleological nature makes them unsuitable for many physical applications both in classical and quantum gravity. Therefore, over the…
We describe the null geometry of a multiple black hole event horizon in terms of a conformal rescaling of a flat space null hypersurface. For the prolate spheroidal case, we show that the method reproduces the pair-of-pants shaped horizon…
We numerically study the algebraic properties of the Weyl tensor through the merger of two non-spinning black holes (BHs). We are particularly interested in the conjecture that for such a vacuum spacetime, which is zeroth-order…
We describe recent numerical simulations of the merger of a class of equal mass, non-spinning, eccentric binary black hole systems in general relativity. We show that with appropriate fine-tuning of the initial conditions to a region of…
Event horizons are (generically) not physically observable. In contrast, apparent horizons (and the closely related trapping horizons) are generically physically observable --- in the sense that they can be detected by observers working in…
This talk gives a brief introduction to black hole horizons and their role in black hole thermodynamics. In particular a distinction is made between quasi-locally defined horizons and event horizons. Currently some new techniques have led…
We find the first binary black hole event horizon with a toroidal topology. It had been predicted that generically the event horizons of merging black holes should briefly have a toroidal topology, but such a phase has never been seen prior…
We discuss a sequence of numerically constructed geometries describing binary black hole event horizons -- providing the necessary input for characteristic evolution of the exterior spacetime. Our sequence approaches a single Schwarzschild…
The event horizon of a black hole is arguably the most dramatic manifestation of the fact that in General Relativity, causal structure is dynamical and spacetimes can be separated into distinct regions by causal boundaries. Causal set…
In four dimensions the topology of the event horizon of an asymptotically flat stationary black hole is uniquely determined to be the two-sphere $S^2$. We consider the topology of event horizons in higher dimensions. First, we reconsider…
A popular approach in numerical simulations of black hole binaries is to model black holes as punctures in the fabric of spacetime. The location and the properties of the black hole punctures are tracked with apparent horizons, namely…
The traditional description of black holes in terms of event horizons is inadequate for many physical applications, especially when studying black holes in non-stationary spacetimes. In these cases, it is often more useful to use the…
The close similarities of the three laws of black hole mechanics, discovered by Bardeen, Carter and Hawking, with the laws of thermodynamics led to the identification of a multiple of the area of the event horizon with entropy. However,…
Based on an investigation into the near-horizon geometrical description of black hole spacetimes (the so-called "($r$,$t$) sector"), we find that the surface area of the event horizon of a black hole is mirrored in the area of a…