Dr Katy Clough

Abstract:

The interaction of binary black hole mergers with their environments can be studied using numerical relativity simulations. These start only a short finite time before merger, at which point appropriate initial conditions must be imposed. A key task is therefore to identify the configuration that is appropriate for the binary and its environment at this stage of the evolution. In this work we study the behavior of wave dark matter around equal mass black hole binaries, finding that there is a preferred, quasistationary profile that persists and grows over multiple orbits, in contrast to heavier mass dark matter where any overdensity tends to be dispersed by the binary motion. While different initial configurations converge to the preferred quasistationary one after several orbits, unwanted transient oscillations are generated in the process, which may have an impact on the signal in short simulation runs. We also point out that naively superimposing the matter onto a circular binary results in artificially eccentric orbits due to the matter backreaction, which is an effect of the initial conditions and not a signature of dark matter. We discuss the further work required so that comparison of waveforms obtained with environments to vacuum cases can be done in a meaningful way.