How Black Holes Get Their Kicks
Kelly Holley-Bockelmann (Vanderbilt)
Finally, computer simulations can merge two black holes in
full general relativity -- and the latest results reveal a big surprise:
when two black holes merge, the new black hole gets a gravitational
wave kick with a velocity as high as 4000 km/s. A kick this fast can send
even a supermassive black hole careening out of its
home galaxy. How, then, do galaxies - especially low mass ones in the
early universe - retain supermassive black holes after they merge? We will
explore this
and other consequences of kicking black holes in this talk.
