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Hauptverfasser: Kankani, Anuj, McWilliams, Sean T.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15474
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author Kankani, Anuj
McWilliams, Sean T.
author_facet Kankani, Anuj
McWilliams, Sean T.
contents The merger-ringdown radiation from a black hole binary merger is accurately modeled by a sum of linear quasinormal modes (QNMs). Recently, a non-QNM ``direct wave" component of the radiation, associated with prompt emission from a plunging perturber, has been identified. Motivated by the behavior of null geodesics perturbed from the remnant light ring, the Backwards One Body (BOB) approach has been shown to model the full merger-ringdown radiation to high accuracy, while using only a minimal number of parameters. In this work, using the Pöschl--Teller potential, we first show how the BOB amplitude evolution can be recovered from the QNM pole contributions. We then apply rational filters to isolate the non-QNM content in BOB and numerical relativity waveforms. We show that BOB naturally captures the direct wave component of the merger radiation, explaining its accuracy near the waveform peak. Finally, we use BOB to show that the direct wave frequency is largely uncorrelated with the horizon frequency, even for high spin remnants, and instead tracks the News frequency at the time of the peak News amplitude.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_15474
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Direct Waves in Black-Hole Binary Mergers: Insights from the Backwards One Body Model
Kankani, Anuj
McWilliams, Sean T.
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
The merger-ringdown radiation from a black hole binary merger is accurately modeled by a sum of linear quasinormal modes (QNMs). Recently, a non-QNM ``direct wave" component of the radiation, associated with prompt emission from a plunging perturber, has been identified. Motivated by the behavior of null geodesics perturbed from the remnant light ring, the Backwards One Body (BOB) approach has been shown to model the full merger-ringdown radiation to high accuracy, while using only a minimal number of parameters. In this work, using the Pöschl--Teller potential, we first show how the BOB amplitude evolution can be recovered from the QNM pole contributions. We then apply rational filters to isolate the non-QNM content in BOB and numerical relativity waveforms. We show that BOB naturally captures the direct wave component of the merger radiation, explaining its accuracy near the waveform peak. Finally, we use BOB to show that the direct wave frequency is largely uncorrelated with the horizon frequency, even for high spin remnants, and instead tracks the News frequency at the time of the peak News amplitude.
title Direct Waves in Black-Hole Binary Mergers: Insights from the Backwards One Body Model
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15474