Gravitational recoil from binary black hole mergers in scalar field clouds

Understand

In vacuum, the gravitational recoil of the final black hole from the merger of two black holes depends exclusively on the mass ratio and spins of the coalescing black holes, and on the eccentricity of the binary.

• If matter is present, accretion by the merging black holes may modify significantly their masses and spins, altering both the dynamics of the binary and the gravitational recoil of the remnant black hole.
• This paper considers such scenario.
• We investigate the effects on the kick of the final black hole from immersing the binary in a scalar field cloud.