Head-on collisions of unequal mass black holes in D=5 dimensions

TL;DR

This paper investigates head-on collisions of unequal mass black holes in five-dimensional spacetime, providing new waveforms and energy data, and compares results with linearized calculations, revealing insights into higher-dimensional gravity.

Contribution

First presentation of waveforms and energy measurements for unequal mass black hole collisions in D=5 dimensions, with comparison to linearized models.

Findings

Waveforms and energy data match linearized calculations within 5%.

Results suggest new features in higher dimensions to satisfy the area theorem.

Study extends understanding of black hole collisions beyond four dimensions.

Abstract

We study head-on collisions of unequal mass black hole binaries in D=5 space-time dimensions, with mass ratios between 1:1 and 1:4. Information about gravitational radiation is extracted by using the Kodama-Ishibashi gauge-invariant formalism and details of the apparent horizon of the final black hole. For the first time, we present waveforms, total integrated energy and momentum for this process. Our results show surprisingly good agreement, within 5% or less, with those extrapolated from linearized, point-particle calculations. Our results also show that consistency with the area theorem bound requires that the same process in a large number of spacetime dimensions must display new features.