Eccentricity content of binary black hole initial data

TL;DR

This paper investigates the orbital eccentricity in binary black hole initial data and finds that a small eccentricity is necessary to align numerical data with post-Newtonian predictions, potentially impacting gravitational wave modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a diagnostic tool to analyze eccentricity in binary black hole initial data and highlights the importance of eccentricity in numerical relativity simulations.

Findings

A small eccentricity is needed to match post-Newtonian and numerical data.

Eccentricity may influence the accuracy of gravitational waveform predictions.

The study emphasizes the role of eccentricity in initial data for black hole mergers.

Abstract

Using a post-Newtonian diagnostic tool developed by Mora and Will, we examine numerically generated quasiequilibrium initial data sets that have been used in recently successful numerical evolutions of binary black holes through plunge, merger and ringdown. We show that a small but significant orbital eccentricity is required to match post-Newtonian and quasiequilibrium calculations. If this proves to be a real eccentricity, it could affect the fine details of the subsequent numerical evolutions and the predicted gravitational waveforms.