Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: We revisit the three black hole scenario with numerical relativity techniques to study hierarchical configurations where the inner binary contains highly spinning black holes. We find that the merger time of the binary gets a delay (with a number of orbits to merger increase), depending strongly on the distance to the orbiting third hole $D$ as $\ensuremath{\sim}1/{D}^{1.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.1}$. Notably, this is a different dependence from what we had found in the nonspinning case, $\ensuremath{\sim}1/{D}^{2.5}$. We interpret this effect as mostly due to a spin-orbit coupling between the third hole and the closest member of the binary in the successive approaches. This leads us next to study scattering configurations of the third hole with the binary in order to evaluate the extent of these ``sudden'' interactions, finding also a correlation of the delay in merger times with the closest distance, even for the nonspinning cases. We then explore the mass ratio dependence of the triple system by modeling binaries orbiting a larger black hole bearing mass ratios $8\ensuremath{\mathbin:}1\ensuremath{\mathbin:}1$ and $18\ensuremath{\mathbin:}1\ensuremath{\mathbin:}1$ in co-orbiting or counterorbiting configurations, finding merger times increasing with increasing mass ratios and for the counterorbiting cases.
Authors: Giuseppe Ficarra, Carlos O. Lousto
Institutions: Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Calabria
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: National Science Foundation
Awards: Explorations of Extreme and Eccentric Binary Black Hole Mergers, G3243075157, MRI: Acquisition of an Advanced Computing Cluster for General Relativistic Astrophysics, G4690694885, MRI: Acquisition of a Computing Cluster for Gravitational-Wave and Multimessenger Astrophysics in the Era of LIGO Detections, CDI-Type II: Collaborative Research: Computing Supermassive Black Hole Mergers in Astrophysics, MRI: Acquisition of a Computing System for Large Simulation Data Sets in Multimessenger Astrophysics
OpenAlex ID: W4403811117