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News from Horizons in Binary Black Hole Mergers
Vaishak Prasad1, Anshu Gupta1, Sukanta Bose1,2
1Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411 007, India.
Physical Review Letters
|October 5, 2020
Summary
Gravitational wave chirp signals from binary black hole mergers have a horizon counterpart: the shear of outgoing null rays. This shear mimics the waveform, allowing inference of black hole properties from gravitational waves.
Area of Science:
- Astrophysics
- General Relativity
- Gravitational Wave Astronomy
Background:
- Binary black hole mergers produce gravitational waves with distinct inspiral, merger, and ringdown phases.
- The relationship between black hole horizon geometry and observed waveforms remains incompletely understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the connection between black hole horizon geometry and gravitational waveforms during binary black hole mergers.
- To explore if horizon properties can be inferred from observed gravitational wave signals.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of the shear of outgoing null rays at the black hole horizon during simulated binary black hole mergers.
- Comparison of the behavior of horizon shear with compact binary coalescence waveforms.
- Estimation of system parameters from both horizon shear and gravitational waveforms.
Main Results:
- The shear of outgoing null rays at the black hole horizon directly corresponds to the inspiral chirp waveform.
- Horizon shear exhibits increasing frequency and amplitude, mirroring the gravitational wave signal.
- System parameters derived from horizon shear align with those obtained from waveform analysis.
Conclusions:
- The shear of outgoing null rays serves as a direct observable counterpart to the gravitational waveform on the black hole horizon.
- Gravitational wave observations can potentially reveal detailed properties of black hole horizons, despite their causal disconnection.
- This finding strengthens the link between general relativity predictions and observational data in black hole astrophysics.
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