The phenomenology of black hole mergers extracted from comupter simulations

Approximation methods apply to the beginning (Newtonian/Keplerian physics) and the end (quasinormal ringing) of black hole binary inspiral/merger, the main source of LIGO/VIRGO detections. Most of the radiation, however, is generated in the "plunge," the transition, a strong field interaction not amenable to standard approximations. We show that a compelling semi-quantitative picture of the physics of the plunge comes from the details of plunge radiation.