Exploring the small mass ratio binary black hole merger via Zeno's dichotomy approach

Understand

We perform a sequence of binary black hole simulations with increasingly small mass ratios, reaching to a 128:1 binary that displays 13 orbits before merger.

• Based on a detailed convergence study of the $q=m_1/m_2=1/15$ nonspinning case, we apply additional mesh refinements levels around the smaller hole horizon to reach successively the $q=1/32$, $q=1/64$, and $q=1/128$ cases.
• Roughly a linear computational resources scaling with $1/q$ is observed on 8-nodes simulations.
• We compute the remnant properties of the merger: final mass, spin, and recoil velocity, finding precise consistency between horizon and radiation measures.