Related papers: Evolution of creases on the event horizon of a bla…
We argue that the event horizon of a binary black hole merger, in the extreme-mass-ratio limit where one of the black holes is much smaller than the other, can be described in an exact analytic way. This is done by tracing in the…
We study the geometry of the event horizon of a spacetime in which a small compact object plunges into a large Schwarzschild black hole. We first use the Regge-Wheeler and Zerilli formalisms to calculate the metric perturbations induced by…
Event horizons are the defining physical features of black hole spacetimes, and are of considerable interest in studying black hole dynamics. Here, we reconsider three techniques to localise event horizons in numerical spacetimes:…
We analyse the formation and evolution of the event horizon of a black hole binary merger when the black holes are charged. We find that the presence of charge influences the properties of the merger and can be useful for investigating the…
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…
The behavior of quasi-local black hole horizons in a binary black hole merger is studied numerically. We compute the horizon multipole moments, fluxes and other quantities on black hole horizons throughout the merger. These lead to a better…
The event horizon of a dynamical black hole is generically a non-smooth hypersurface. We classify the types of non-smooth structure that can arise on a horizon that is smooth at late time. The classification includes creases, corners and…
The merger of a binary black hole gives birth to a highly distorted final black hole. The gravitational radiation emitted as this black hole relaxes presents us with the unique opportunity to probe extreme gravity and its connection with…
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…
The problem of the event horizon in relativistic gravity is discussed. Singular solutions in general relativity are well known. The Schwarschild metric of a spherical mass is singular at zero ($r = 0$) and at the event horizon ($r = r_g$).…
In recent years there have been many studies on exactly solvable black hole mergers, based on a model by Emparan and Martinez where the mass of one black hole is blown up to infinity. Here we replace the large black hole by a cosmological…
We investigate the properties of the event horizon in the merger between a large black hole and a smaller neutron star. We find that, if the star is compact enough, then, in its rest frame a horizon begins to grow inside the star before it…
An important question in binary black hole mergers is to connect properties of the remnant black hole to those of the two initial black holes. These properties include not only the final mass and spin of the remnant, but also higher…
The advent of gravitational wave observation starts a new era of precision tests of gravitational theory. Estimations of black holes mergers should come from any well established gravitational theories, provided that the theory has not been…
The generic crease set of an event horizon possesses anisotropic structure though most of black holes are dynamically stable. This fact suggests that a generic almost spherical black hole has a very crumpled crease set in a microscopic…
We model an extreme mass ratio merger (EMR) as a point particle radially plunging into a large Schwarzschild black hole. We assume that the mass of the point particle, $\mu$, is much smaller than the black hole mass M. Under this assumption…
It has been recently pointed out that nonlinear effects are necessary to model the ringdown stage of the gravitational waveform produced by the merger of two black holes giving rise to a remnant Kerr black hole. We show that this nonlinear…
We study event horizons of non-axisymmetric black holes and show how features found in axisymmetric studies of colliding black holes and of toroidal black holes are non-generic and how new features emerge. Most of the details of black hole…
We study in detail the dynamics and stability of marginally trapped surfaces during a binary black hole merger. This is the second in a two-part study. The first part studied the basic geometric aspects of the world tubes traced out by the…
We study curvature invariants in a binary black hole merger. It has been conjectured that one could define a quasi-local and foliation independent black hole horizon by finding the level--$0$ set of a suitable curvature invariant of the…