Strong Interactions in the Three Black Holes Problem

We study the three-body problem from different perspectives, going from classical Newtonian physics to general relativity. In the classical case, we modeled the interactions in a typical chaotic configuration, identifying strong interaction times (SITs), namely transients in which the system manifests complex, highly energetic dynamics. By selecting one of such SITs as an initial condition for the general relativistic case, we perform simulations of numerical relativity, showing net differences with the Newtonian case. In the relativistic case, comparing also with the more "quiet" two-body inspiral, we observed strong nonlinear emission of gravitational waves. The spectrum of the three-body signals during a SIT might be a guidance for future gravitational waves observations.