Search

We present results from fully nonlinear simulations of unequal mass binary black holes plunging from close separations well inside the innermost stable circular orbit with mass ratios q = M_1/M_2 = {1,0.85,0.78,0.55,0.32}, or equivalently, with reduced mass parameters $\eta=M_1M_2/(M_1+M_2)^2 = {0.25, 0.248, 0.246, 0.229, 0.183}$. For each case, the initial binary orbital parameters are chosen from the Cook-Baumgarte equal-mass ISCO configuration. We show waveforms of the dominant l=2,3 modes and compute estimates of energy and angular momentum radiated. For the plunges from the close separations considered, we measure kick velocities from gravitational radiation recoil in the range 25-82 km/s. Due to the initial close separations our kick velocity estimates should be understood as a lower bound. The close configurations considered are also likely to contain significant eccentricities influencing the recoil velocity., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, to appear in "New Frontiers" special issue of CQG

Interferometric detectors will very soon give us an unprecedented view of the gravitational-wave sky, and in particular of the explosive and transient Universe. Now is the time to challenge our theoretical understanding of short-duration gravitational-wave signatures from cataclysmic events, their connection to more traditional electromagnetic and particle astrophysics, and the data analysis techniques that will make the observations a reality. This paper summarizes the state of the art, future science opportunities, and current challenges in understanding gravitational-wave transients., 33 pages, 2 figures

This paper introduces a catalog of gravitational waveforms from the bank of simulations by the numerical relativity effort at Georgia Tech. Currently, the catalog consists of 452 distinct waveforms from more than 600 binary black hole simulations: 128 of the waveforms are from binaries with black hole spins aligned with the orbital angular momentum, and 324 are from precessing binary black hole systems. The waveforms from binaries with non-spinning black holes have mass-ratios $q = m_1/m_2 \le 15$, and those with precessing, spinning black holes have $q \le 8$. The waveforms expand a moderate number of orbits in the late inspiral, the burst during coalescence, and the ring-down of the final black hole. Examples of waveforms in the catalog matched against the widely used approximate models are presented. In addition, predictions of the mass and spin of the final black hole by phenomenological fits are tested against the results from the simulation bank. The role of the catalog in interpreting the GW150914 event and future massive binary black-hole search in LIGO is discussed. The Georgia Tech catalog is publicly available at einstein.gatech.edu/catalog.

Gravitational wave observations will probe non-linear gravitational interactions and thus enable strong tests of Einstein's theory of general relativity. We present a numerical relativity study of the late inspiral and merger of binary black holes in scalar-tensor theories of gravity. We consider black hole binaries in an inhomogeneous scalar field, specifically binaries inside a scalar field bubble, in some cases with a potential. We calculate the emission of dipole radiation. We also show how these configurations trigger detectable differences between gravitational waves in scalar-tensor gravity and the corresponding waves in general relativity. We conclude that, barring an external mechanism to induce dynamics in the scalar field, scalar-tensor gravity binary black holes alone are not capable of awaking a dormant scalar field, and are thus observationally indistinguishable from their general relativistic counterparts., 4 pages, 5 figures, 1 table

Owing to the difficulty of direct observation, mergers of intermediate-mass black hole binaries are relatively less understood compared to stellar-mass binaries; however, the gravitational waves from their last few orbits and ringdown fall in the band of ground-based detectors. Because the typical source is expected to circularize prior to entering LIGO or VIRGO's range, inspiral searches concentrate on circularized binaries. It is possible that events will be missed if there are sources with residual eccentricity. We study the variation of the signal to noise present in the dominant mode of the eccentric evolutions as a function of mass and eccentricity and also the relative contribution of the signal in the various spherical harmonic modes. The energy radiated in gravitational waves increases with eccentricity until the eccentricity becomes too high, leading to plunging trajectories, at which point the energy radiated decreases. This enhancement of the energy for initial eccentricities near the transition value translates into larger signal-to-noise ratios. Consequently despite the anticipated loss in the signal-to-noise ratio due to the use of quasi-circular detection templates, some eccentric signals potentially may be seen farther out than others.

The 2008 Numerical Relativity Data Analysis (NRDA) Meeting, the second in the series, was hosted by the Department of Physics at Syracuse University, 11–14 August 2008 with 60 participants. The purpose of the NRDA meetings is to bring together two communities with a vested interest in gravitational-wave observations: the data analysis and numerical relativity communities. The first NRDA meeting was held in November 2006 at MIT. A quote of Peter Saulson's from the Matters of Gravity Newsletter puts the importance of the NRDA meetings in perspective. He wrote: `As I sat in the back row of Rm NW14-1112 at MIT on Tuesday 7 November 2006, it suddenly struck me that we were participating in a watershed moment in the history of gravitational physics. Here, in the same room, were two communities who decades earlier had promised to help each other in a grand adventure: the detection of gravitational waves and the use of those waves to explore the frontiers of strong field gravity.' That meeting marked the first time when the two communities began to speak each other's language.\ud By the time of the second NRDA meeting, much progress had been made. Numerical relativists were starting to explore the binary-black-hole parameter space and were making advances in evolutions of neutron-star and neutron-star/black-hole binaries. Data analysts were investigating better algorithms for the detection of both inspiral and burst sources. Most importantly, on 14 August 2008, someone sitting in the back row of the Stolkin Auditorium in Syracuse University might have noted the beginning of real collaborations between the two communities. The meeting included presentations based on joint work by numerical relativists and data analysts. Also the participants at NRDA2008 asked tough questions about how to best use numerical relativity in gravitational wave detection, as well as showcasing some of the science that will allow us to formulate the answers to these questions.\ud This issue presents many of the highlights of the meeting. These include an article that summarizes the NINJA project, a collaboration between data analysts and numerical relativists that is testing data analysis pipelines on numerical relativity waveforms buried in simulated detector noise. In addition, there are several technical papers concerning the results of team efforts involved in NINJA. Also included is a review of the status of black-hole simulations, updates on black-hole and neutron-star sources of gravitational waves, accuracy tests of gravitational waveforms, binary parameter estimation methods, updates on searches using analytic and phenomenological waveforms, and a road map to the advanced LIGO detectors.\ud The conference organizers would like to acknowledge the financial support of the National Science Foundation under grant number PHY-0838740, and support from Syracuse University. We thank the local organizing committee of Duncan Brown, Penny Davis and Joshua Smith as well as the other members of the scientific organizing committee of Duncan Brown (Syracuse University), Sascha Husa (AEI), Badri Krishnan (AEI) and Harald Pfeiffer (CITA) for putting together an exciting conference. We also thank the editorial staff of the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, especially Adam Day, Suzanne Prescott, and Joseph Tennant for their assistance, support, and patience in preparing this issue. Finally, we would like to thank the participants of NRDA2008 for making this conference so vital and energizing.\ud The next NRDA meeting will be held at the Albert Einstein Institute in Potsdam, Germany 6–9 July 2009. We look forward to new collaborations, and to the continued blurring of the lines between our communities as we explore the interface of numerical relativity and data analysis.