Cross section, final spin and zoom-whirl behavior in high-energy black hole collisions
by Sperhake, U. and Cardoso, V. and Pretorius, F. and Berti, E. and Hinderer, T. and Yunes, N.
4 pages, 4 pages, revtex
We study the collision of two highly boosted equal mass, nonrotating black holes with generic impact parameter. We find such systems to exhibit zoom-whirl behavior when fine tuning the impact parameter. Near the threshold of immediate merger, these systems can produce black holes rotating close to the Kerr limit and generate radiated energies as large as ~35% of the center of mass energy.
