Scattering and dynamical capture of two black holes: synergies between numerical and analytical methods

Understand

We study initially unbound systems of two black holes using numerical relativity (NR) simulations performed with GR-Athena++.

• We focus on regions of the parameter space close to the transition from scatterings to dynamical captures, considering equal mass and spin-aligned configurations, as well as unequal mass and nonspinning ones.
• The numerical results are then used to validate the effective-one-body (EOB) model TEOBResumS-Dal\'i for dynamical captures and scatterings.
• We find good agreement for the waveform phenomenologies, scattering angles, mismatches, and energetics in the low energy regime ($E_0\lesssim 1.02\,M$).