# Physics of eccentric binary black hole mergers: A numerical relativity perspective

## TL;DR

This paper presents a catalog of 89 numerical relativity waveforms for eccentric binary black hole mergers, providing insights into their physics and aiding gravitational wave detection efforts.

## Contribution

It introduces a new catalog of waveforms for non-spinning black hole binaries with high eccentricity, enhancing understanding of their gravitational wave signatures.

## Key findings

- Quantified energy and angular momentum loss during mergers
- Analyzed properties of black hole remnants including mass, spin, and recoil velocity
- Discussed implications for gravitational wave detection and modeling

## Abstract

Gravitational wave observations of eccentric binary black hole mergers will provide unequivocal evidence for the formation of these systems through dynamical assembly in dense stellar environments. The study of these astrophysically motivated sources is timely in view of electromagnetic observations, consistent with the existence of stellar mass black holes in the globular cluster M22 and in the Galactic center, and the proven detection capabilities of ground-based gravitational wave detectors. In order to get insights into the physics of these objects in the dynamical, strong-field gravity regime, we present a catalog of 89 numerical relativity waveforms that describe binary systems of non-spinning black holes with mass-ratios $1\leq q \leq 10$, and initial eccentricities as high as $e_0=0.18$ fifteen cycles before merger. We use this catalog to quantify the loss of energy and angular momentum through gravitational radiation, and the astrophysical properties of the black hole remnant, including its final mass and spin, and recoil velocity. We discuss the implications of these results for gravitational wave source modeling, and the design of algorithms to search for and identify eccentric binary black hole mergers in realistic detection scenarios.