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J. G. Baker (NASA-GSFC)
Binary black hole coalescence is expected to be a major source of gravitational radiation. Ground-based detectors will be sensitive to stellar black hole systems, while the space-based detector LISA may observe the coalescence of massive black holes up to M ~107 Msun. In all cases, predicting the resulting waveforms requires 3-D simulations of the full Einstein equations.
We report on the first gravitational radiation waveform calculations based on astrophysically plausible initial data. These are carried out using a new technique that combines the full numerical approach to solve the Einstein equations in the truly non-linear regime, with linearized perturbation theory around the final distorted single black hole at later times. Starting with non-spinning binary black holes from near the innermost stable circular orbit, we find that about 3% of the system's total mass-energy is suddenly converted to gravitational waves.
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: jbaker@milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov