Self-intersecting marginally outer trapped surfaces

Understand

We have shown previously that a merger of marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTSs) occurs in a binary black hole merger and that there is a continuous sequence of MOTSs which connects the initial two black holes to the final one.

• In this paper, we confirm this scenario numerically and we detail further improvements in the numerical methods for locating MOTSs.
• With these improvements, we confirm the merger scenario and demonstrate the existence of self-intersecting MOTSs formed in the immediate aftermath of the merger.
• These results will allow us to track physical quantities across the non-linear merger process and to potentially infer properties of the merger from gravitational wave observations.