In search of the maximum lost momentum

Abstract

We performed a series of 1381 full numerical simulations of high energy collision of two black holes to search for the maximum recoil velocity after their merger. We studied equal mass binaries with opposite spins pointing along the orbital plane to maximize asymmetric gravitational radiation and performed a search of spin orientations in the plane, impact parameters, and initial linear momenta to find a maximum recoil velocity extrapolated to the extreme spinning case of [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]km/s, thus tightly bounding recoil by [Formula: see text] the speed of light.