Supermassive recoil velocities for binary black-hole mergers with antialigned spins

Recent calculations of the recoil velocity in binary black-hole mergers have found the kick velocity to be of the order of a few hundred km/s in the case of nonspinning binaries and about 500 km/s in the case of spinning configurations, and have lead to predictions of a maximum kick of up to 1300 km...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2007-06, Vol.98 (23), p.231101-231101, Article 231101
Main Authors: González, José A, Hannam, Mark, Sperhake, Ulrich, Brügmann, Bernd, Husa, Sascha
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Recent calculations of the recoil velocity in binary black-hole mergers have found the kick velocity to be of the order of a few hundred km/s in the case of nonspinning binaries and about 500 km/s in the case of spinning configurations, and have lead to predictions of a maximum kick of up to 1300 km/s. We test these predictions and demonstrate that kick velocities of at least 2500 km/s are possible for equal-mass binaries with antialigned spins in the orbital plane. Kicks of that magnitude are likely to have significant repercussions for models of black-hole formation, the population of intergalactic black holes, and the structure of host galaxies.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.231101