What does a binary black hole merger look like?

Andy Bohn; William Throwe; François Hébert; Katherine Henriksson; Darius Bunandar; Mark A. Scheel; Nicholas W. Taylor

doi:10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/065002

What does a binary black hole merger look like?

Andy Bohn
, William Throwe
, François Hébert
, Katherine Henriksson
, Darius Bunandar
, Mark A. Scheel
, Nicholas W. Taylor

Cornell University
Alphabet Inc.
California Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

103 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present a method of calculating the strong-field gravitational lensing caused by many analytic and numerical spacetimes. We use this procedure to calculate the distortion caused by isolated black holes (BHs) and by numerically evolved BH binaries. We produce both demonstrative images illustrating details of the spatial distortion and realistic images of collections of stars taking both lensing amplification and redshift into account. On large scales the lensing from inspiraling binaries resembles that of single BHs, but on small scales the resulting images show complex and in some cases self-similar structure across different angular scales.

Original language	English
Article number	065002
Journal	Classical and Quantum Gravity
Volume	32
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/065002
State	Published - Mar 19 2015
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

black holes
gravitational lensing
numerical relativity
ray tracing

Access to Document

10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/065002

Cite this

@article{07c09ab8df5a4fdaa2f92ff2be1d3bab,

title = "What does a binary black hole merger look like?",

abstract = "We present a method of calculating the strong-field gravitational lensing caused by many analytic and numerical spacetimes. We use this procedure to calculate the distortion caused by isolated black holes (BHs) and by numerically evolved BH binaries. We produce both demonstrative images illustrating details of the spatial distortion and realistic images of collections of stars taking both lensing amplification and redshift into account. On large scales the lensing from inspiraling binaries resembles that of single BHs, but on small scales the resulting images show complex and in some cases self-similar structure across different angular scales.",

keywords = "black holes, gravitational lensing, numerical relativity, ray tracing",

author = "Andy Bohn and William Throwe and Fran{\c c}ois H{\'e}bert and Katherine Henriksson and Darius Bunandar and Scheel, \{Mark A.\} and Taylor, \{Nicholas W.\}",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd.",

year = "2015",

month = mar,

day = "19",

doi = "10.1088/0264-9381/32/6/065002",

language = "English",

volume = "32",

journal = "Classical and Quantum Gravity",

issn = "0264-9381",