2009

Understanding possible electromagnetic counterparts to loud gravitational wave events: Binary black hole effects on electromagnetic fields

Palenzuela, Carlos, Lehner, Luis, Yoshida, Shin

Understand

In addition to producing loud gravitational waves (GW), the dynamics of a binary black hole system could induce emission of electromagnetic (EM) radiation by affecting the behavior of plasmas and electromagnetic fields in their vicinity.

  • We here study how the electromagnetic fields are affected by a pair of orbiting black holes through the merger.
  • In particular, we show how the binary's dynamics induce a variability in possible electromagnetically induced emissions as well as an enhancement of electromagnetic fields during the late-merge and merger epochs.
  • These time dependent features will likely leave their imprint in processes generating detectable emissions and can be exploited in the detection of electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational waves.

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