<< The interactions between three bodies such as stars or planets or black holes cannot be predicted with an elegant formula. Moerman (Arend Moerman) therefore used a computer that calculates what happens for a short period of time and then uses the result for the next period of time. >>
AA << varied the masses of the three interacting black holes. They started with one solar mass and went up to a billion times the mass of the sun. >>
<< Around ten million solar masses, there appeared to be a tipping point. In the simulations, black holes that are lighter than about ten million solar masses mostly eject each other through a gravitational slingshot. Black holes heavier than about ten million solar masses start to merge. First, two black holes merge. The third black hole will follow later. The black holes merge because they lose kinetic energy and that is because they emit gravitational waves. >>
<< Arend's work (..) has led to a new understanding of how black holes become supermassive. In the simulations, we see that heavy black holes no longer endlessly move around each other, but that, if they are heavy enough, they collide pretty much instantly. >> Simon Portegies Zwart.
Simulating chaotic interactions of three black holes. Netherlands Research School for Astronomy. Oct 20, 2021.
Tjarda C. N. Boekholt, Arend Moerman, Simon F. Portegies Zwart. Relativistic Pythagorean three-body problem. Phys. Rev. D 104, 083020. 14 Oct 14, 2021.
Also
more on the three-body problem (695 families of collisionless orbits). FonT. Oct 16, 2017.
keyword 'black hole' | 'astro' in FonT
keyword 'transition' | 'transitional' in FonT
keyword 'transition' | 'transizion*' in Notes (quasi-stochastic poetry)
keywords: gst, black hole, three-body problem, transition, chaos, chaotic interaction, tipping point.
