Ultrarelativistic Black Hole Formation
William E. EastDepartment of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USAFrans PretoriusDepartment of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
2013en
ABI
Abstract
We study the head-on collision of fluid particles well within the kinetic energy dominated regime ($\ensuremath{\gamma}=8$ to 12) by numerically solving the Einstein-hydrodynamic equations. We find that the threshold for black hole formation is lower (by a factor of a few) than simple hoop conjecture estimates, and, moreover, near this threshold two distinct apparent horizons first form postcollision and then merge. We argue that this can be understood in terms of a gravitational focusing effect. The gravitational radiation reaches luminosities of $0.014\text{ }{c}^{5}/G$, carrying $16\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2%$ of the total energy.
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Cited by 40 references