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# Galaxy Morphologies in the Cluster CL1358+62 at z=0.331footnote 11footnote 1Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory

## 1 Introduction

The WFPC2 camera on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has made it possible to determine the morphologies of galaxies at intermediate redshift and beyond. It has been known for some time that the photometric and spectral properties of galaxies in intermediate redshift clusters differ from galaxies in nearby clusters; the population of blue, star-forming galaxies and post-starburst galaxies is larger at intermediate redshift, see e.g., Butcher & Oemler (1984), Dressler (1987), Gunn & Dressler (1988), Couch & Sharples (1987), and Dressler & Gunn (1999). Given the correlation between the spectral and morphological properties of galaxies (Morgan & Mayall (1957), Morgan & Osterbrock (1969), Kennicutt (1992)), we might be able to detect a corresponding evolution of galaxy morphology in intermediate redshift clusters. However, the evolution of morphology is likely to be more subtle than spectral evolution, since galaxies of the same morphological type can have significantly different star formation rates (e.g. Jansen et al. (1999)).

In the most ambitious study of this sort with WFPC2 to date, the MORPHS group have classified over 1200 galaxies in 10 clusters at 0.37$`<`$z$`<`$0.56 (Smail et al. (1997)). They find that S0 galaxies are less common than in low redshift clusters and that the ratio of S0’s to E’s within a radius of $``$600 kpc (for H0=50, q0=0.5) decreases with redshift, falling from 2 in low redshift clusters to less than 0.5 at $`z=0.5`$.

Andreon, Davoust & Heim (1997) (see also Andreon (1998)) have independently classified galaxies in a WFPC2 image of Cl0939+4713, one of the less concentrated clusters in the MORPHS sample. They find a ratio of S0’s to E’s of $``$2, quite comparable to a low-$`z`$ reference sample in the Coma Cluster. However, they classify 40-50% of the galaxies in Cl0939+4713 as spirals (S), in contrast with 20-30% S in a comparable region of the Coma Cluster. The sample of galaxies in Cl0939+4713 is relatively small ($``$70), and redshifts are available for less than one third of these.

Couch et al. (1998) present a study of the morphological types in three clusters at $`z`$=0.31, also using WFPC2 images. There is substantial overlap between the authors of this paper and the MORPHS group, and the two groups have attempted to adopt a consistent morphological system. At $`z`$=0.31, Couch et al. find an excess of S’s, with an abundance at small radii ($``$400 kpc for $`H_0`$=50, $`q_0`$=0.5) approximately twice that in low-$`z`$ reference clusters. However, averaged over the three clusters, within 400 kpc, they find a ratio of S0’s to E’s at most slightly depressed relative to regions of comparable galaxy surface density in low-$`z`$ clusters. 333It is important to account for the morphology-density relation when we consider the morphological content of clusters. At high galaxy densities, typically found in the cores of clusters, the low-$`z`$ reference population becomes increasingly dominated by E’s, Dressler et al. (1997). Note, however, that the average $`z`$ of the MORPHS clusters is larger (0.46).

Lubin et al. (1998) report the morphological types in two more distant clusters at $`z`$0.9. One cluster, CL0023+04, appears to be composed of two low velocity dispersion groups, and contains predominantly S’s. The other, CL1604+43, with a velocity dispersion of $``$1200 km s-1, contains $``$76% early-types. In the latter case, the S0/E ratio is found to be 1.7$`\pm `$0.9. This result is sensitive to the assumed morphological composition of the foreground/background population, but is evidence that the S0/E ratio does not decline smoothly with $`z`$.

Our approach is complementary to the Dressler et al. (1997), Andreon, Davoust & Heim (1997), and Couch et al. (1998) studies which predominantly describe the galaxy morphologies in cluster cores. We use mosaics of WFPC2 fields to study the galaxy population in a larger region (allowing larger galaxy samples per cluster), and we have acquired large numbers of spectra of cluster galaxies. The spectra remove ambiguity about cluster membership and allow us to directly connect the morphological and spectral properties of the galaxies. Our sample of clusters is x-ray selected, with x-ray luminosities exceeding 4$`\times `$1044 erg s-1 in the 0.2–4.5 keV band.

In CL1358+62 at $`z`$=0.33, we have drawn a complete sample of 518 galaxies to a magnitude limit $`I`$=22 from a WFPC2 mosaic image of CL1358+62 covering 53 square arcminutes. Spectra for 276 of the 518 galaxies in the morphological sample were previously obtained at the Multiple Mirror and William Herschel Telescopes. The color-magnitude relation of the 194 spectroscopically confirmed cluster members in the HST mosaic (3 are fainter than $`I`$=22) has been previously described in van Dokkum et al. (1998). The spectroscopic properties of 232 cluster members (some outside the HST mosaic), as well as the cluster dynamics have been described in Fisher et al. (1998).

Our objectives in this paper are fourfold. (1) We introduce the morphological classification techniques that we will apply to our entire sample of clusters. (2) We classify the galaxies in CL1358+62 at z=0.33, comparing our classifications with those of an experienced external researcher, Alan Dressler. Our deep sample with two independent classifications provides a useful assessment of the scatter between WFPC2 visual morphological classifications at intermediate redshifts. (3) We describe the robust, classifier-independent conclusions and explore the physical implications of the differences between the two sets of classifications. (4) We connect the spectral and morphological types of the cluster galaxies.

The paper is organized in the following fashion. In $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 2, we describe the photometric catalog from which the morphological sample was drawn. The two set of morphological classifications are discussed in $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 3. The morphological composition of the cluster and evidence for morphological evolution are presented in $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 4. The connection between the morphological and spectral properties of the galaxies is made in $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 5. $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 6 contains a brief discussion and conclusions.

## 2 Photometric Catalog

Our photometric catalog, from which we draw galaxies for morphological classification, is derived from the HST F814W mosaic image. The techniques used to construct the mosaic are described in van Dokkum et al. (1998). Our use of the mosaic image, instead of individual WFPC2 CCD frames, slightly compromises the accuracy of the photometry, but considerably simplifies the source detection problem by eliminating most of the boundaries. Because our goal is to select a sample of galaxies for morphological classification to a consistent magnitude limit, rather than to perform precision photometry, this is a beneficial tradeoff. We used the SExtractor package, described by Bertin & Arnouts (1996), to detect the galaxies and perform the photometry. We use a detection and analysis threshold of 24.5 mag arcsec-2, and a zeropoint of 30.546 (3600 s exposures, May 1997 WFPC2 SYNPHOT update) to convert from instrumental magnitudes to a Cousins $`I`$ magnitude444 Throughout the paper we consistently refer to a Cousins $`I`$ magnitude, which is very close to the natural F814W system referred to a Vega zeropoint (Holtzmann et al. (1995)). The adopted zeropoint is the average of the value for the 3 WFPC2 CCDs, which vary by $``$$`\pm `$0.01 magnitudes. We use the SExtractor total magnitude estimator (see Bertin & Arnouts (1996)), which is insensitive to the analysis threshold.

In order to allow convenient comparisons with the results of the MORPHS group (Dressler et al. (1997)), we calculate a conversion of observed $`I`$ magnitudes (for $`z<`$0.6) to a $`V`$ magnitude in the rest frame. Some of the MORPHS classifications used WFPC2 F702W filter data, so we also derive a consistent conversion from F702W magnitudes to a rest frame $`V`$. The intent in Dressler et al. (1997) was to work to a consistent limit of $`M_V`$=-20, but a transcription error from Table 9 of Holtzmann et al. (1995) led to the adoption of a deeper limit of $`M_V`$$``$-19. (Here and throughout we use $`M_V`$ to refer to a rest frame $`V`$ absolute magnitude.) In contrast with Dressler et al. (1997), we also apply an evolutionary correction to allow a closer comparison with low $`z`$ clusters. We adopt the Dressler et al. (1997) cosmological model (H0=50 km s-1 Mpc-1, q0=0.5)

We use four numbers in addition to the distance modulus to convert from the WFPC2 magnitudes to $`M_V`$: (1) the conversion from the Vega-referenced WFPC2 natural filter system to Cousins filter bands, (2) the $`z`$-dependent $`K`$ correction to transform the observed Cousins $`R`$ and $`I`$ magnitudes to the rest frame, (3) the estimated rest frame galaxy colors, and (4) a $`z`$-dependent evolutionary correction. Each of these numbers depends on the spectral energy distribution of the galaxies, so the accuracy of this procedure is limited. We use these numbers, however, only to choose sample limiting magnitudes appropriately scaled with $`z`$. We adopt the approximate expressions described below for these conversions.

We first fit a linear relation to the synthetic transformation of F702W to $`R`$ as a function of $`VR`$ (valid for $`VR`$$`<`$1.5), using results from Fig. 10 of Holtzmann et al. (1995):

$`RF702W=0.31(VR)`$ (1a)

We take the $`VR`$ colors of galaxies as a function of $`z`$ from Frei & Gunn (1994), with a morphological mix of 70% E and 30% Sbc to convert (1a) to:

$`RF702W=0.31(0.53730.9132z+10.17z^211.21z^3)`$ (1b)

To a good approximation (0.1 mag), Fig. 9 of Holtzmann et al. (1995) shows:

$`IF814W=0`$ (1c)

We fit polynomials to the average $`K`$ corrections of Frei & Gunn (1994) and Poggianti (1997), using 70% E and 30% Sbc or Sc contributions:

$`K_R=0.4293z+3.807z^22.903z^3`$ (2a)

$`K_I=0.4910z+0.4836z^2`$ (2b)

From Frei & Gunn (1994) we take:

$`V_{rest}R_{rest}=0.53`$ (3a)

$`V_{rest}I_{rest}=1.10`$ (3b)

From the the early-type galaxy fundamental plane study of Kelson et al. (1997) we derive an evolutionary correction:

$`EC_{V_{rest}}=0.77z`$ (4)

The corrections are applied in the following fashion:

$`I=M_V+DM+EC_{V_{rest}}(V_{rest}I_{rest})+K_I`$

Here, $`DM`$ is the distance modulus. Applying these expressions to CL1358+62, with a distance modulus at $`z=0.3283`$ of 41.62, we find that the MORPHS limit of $`M_V`$=-20 corresponds to an observed $`I`$=20.5.

Our photometric catalog completeness extends below $`I=23`$, but we have limited our morphological sample to $`I=22`$ to increase the reliability of the morphological classifications. At $`I=22`$, we attain a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) that is very similar to the S/N attained at the $`I=23`$ classification limit adopted by the MORPHS group for their deeper images (Smail et al. (1997)). The standard deviation of the sky noise in our (3600 s) CL1358+62 image has an equivalent surface brightness of 24.4 mag arcsec-2, as compared with 25 mag arcsec-2 typical for the ($``$12600 s) MORPHS images. A crude scaling relation can be derived by assuming that all galaxies have the same surface brightness, and that our criterion is that classifications of equal reliability require the same number of pixels at the same S/N. For a shallower image, we can effectively bin the image of a brighter galaxy that is $`n`$ times larger $`n\times n`$ pixels to achieve a S/N that is $`n`$ times better. To recover a sky S/N deficit of 0.6 mag, we need to set a limit $``$1.2 mag brighter.

## 3 Morphological Classification

There are 518 galaxies in the morphological catalog after removing stars and image artifacts. In the rest frame, the filter central wavelength corresponds to $``$6100 Å. We use the F814W images for morphological classification because they are deeper than the F606W images. Dressler et al. (1997) have used either F702W and F814W images for classification at comparable redshifts (between 0.37 and 0.41).

Below, we describe two sets of morphological classifications. The first set was carried out by the authors of the paper using the techniques described in $`\mathrm{\S }`$3.1. We realized that our classifications would be of greater value if we could compare them with morphological classifications from an external expert. Alan Dressler (AD) kindly agreed to independently classify the entire sample. Dressler is a member of the MORPHS group, and most importantly, has classified a large reference sample of low-$`z`$ cluster galaxies. The strength of the AD classifications is that the same experienced classifier has classified the galaxies at low and intermediate redshifts. Consistency has obvious benefits when searching for evolution.

However, it is important to keep in mind the difficulty of classifying these relatively faint and small galaxies from WFPC2 images. The brighter cluster ellipticals and S0’s in CL1358+62 ($`I19`$) have effective radii (half-light radii), re, of 0.5′′ to 0.6′′. The faintest galaxies in the sample ($`I`$22) have re$``$0.3′′. The 50% encircled energy radius of WFPC2 stellar images measured from our frames is about 0.17′′, so the numbers of meaningful information elements are small: typically 20 to 40. For this reason, we cannot be sure that agreement on a common morphological system is the most significant issue. Even the most experienced classifier may not account for all the systematic differences between the low $`z`$ (photographic) and the intermediate $`z`$ WFPC2 images. By comparing the two sets of morphological classifications we will be able to discern which aspects of the classification are most robust.

### 3.1 DF/MF/PvD Classifications

The 518 sample galaxies were independently classified along the revised Hubble sequence by DF, MF and PvD from 96$`\times `$96 pixel “postage-stamps” drawn from both the mosaic and original individual CCD images. We referred frequently to Sandage (1961) and Sandage & Tammann (1987), as well as to artificially redshifted digital images drawn from the Nearby Field Galaxy Survey (Jansen et al. (1999)). We assigned numerical types as follows: -5 (elliptical), -4 (elliptical or S0), -2 (S0), 0 (S0 or Sa), 1 (Sa), 3 (Sb), 5 (Sc), 7 (Sd), 9 (Sm), 10 (Im) and 99 (peculiar or merger). Intermediate types (2, 4, 6, and 8) were also assigned.

For 80% of the galaxies, the three independent classifications span a range of three or fewer numerical types (we consider -4, -2 and 0 to be adjacent numerical types), and agree exactly for 34% of the sample. For 6% of the sample, the object is considered unclassifiable by one or more of the authors, or else the classifications disagree wildly. In these cases, we assign a numerical type of 999. The remaining 14% are classified type 1 or later by all the authors, but with a broader range of classifications. Table 1 lists the combination rules used to assign types where the agreement is not exact, including type 15 for indeterminate late types.

### 3.2 AD Classifications

Following the completion of the DF/MF/PvD classifications, AD independently classified the CL1358+62 galaxies according to techniques described in Smail et al. (1997). AD does not assign galaxies to the DF/MF/PvD intermediate types -4 (E or S0) or 0 (S0 or Sa) in the same fashion, preferring to subdivide these into E/S0 (-4), S0/E (-3), S0/Sa (-1) and Sa/S0 (0). When discussing the cluster population in broad terms, AD’s types -5 and -4 are combined into E, types -3, -2 and -1 into S0, and etc. DF/MF/PvD split the contents of the -4 bin equally into E and S0, and the 0 bin equally into S0 and Sa. When converting AD’s descriptive types into numerical types, we have placed a few galaxies into the merger (99) bin where an individual catalog object corresponds to an interacting or merging pair of objects.

Augustus Oemler, another member of the MORPHS group, independently classified 307 galaxies from the CL1358+62 sample ($`I`$=22 limit) to check if AD’s classifications adhere to the MORPHS system. Oemler’s classifications agree very well with AD’s overall, with $``$10% more S0’s by number, and a corresponding decrease in the numbers of E’s. The number of spirals is identical in both classifications.

### 3.3 Quantitative Comparison of the Classifications

Like any measurement, classifications will suffer from random and systematic errors. We can estimate these errors by comparing multiple sets of classifications. Ideally, such a comparison should be based on classifications using independent imaging data. Here, both sets of classifiers (DF/MF/PvD and AD) worked from the same data set, so we may underestimate the errors. Nonetheless, this comparison is quite interesting. Figure 1 shows the difference between DF/MF/PvD and AD morphological types for individual galaxies as a function of magnitude. As expected, the differences increase at fainter magnitudes. To avoid creating artifical gaps in Figure 1, we condensed and shifted the numerical types of the early type galaxies for this presentation: -3 for E’s, -2 for E/S0’s and S0/E’s, -1 for S0’s, 0 for S0/Sa and Sa/S0. For types Sa and later, the “normal” types were used. Galaxies which were classified as merger, peculiar, or unclassified by one group were ignored.

Figure 2 is a scatter diagram comparing the two sets of classifications. The scatter is dominated by random differences, but there is some evidence for systematic differences for the early type galaxies. We return to this point below. The scatter between the classifications has been measured by calculating the mean absolute deviation, and normalizing it to the mean absolute deviation of a gaussian with an rms of 1. This measurement of the scatter is much more robust than the RMS of the differences. The result is shown in Figure 3. The scatter is $``$1 for bright galaxies, but increases strongly faintwards of $`I=21`$. The appendix describes how classification errors might systematically bias our population estimates; unfortunately we cannot simply calculate correction factors. In what follows, we restrict most of our analysis to the subset of galaxies with $`I<21`$.

### 3.4 Classification of Ellipticals and S0s

Figure 2 shows a systematic difference in the DF/MF/PvD and AD classifications of early type galaxies. This is not surprising as the division between E and SO is a difficult problem in visual classifications. We might hope that looking at two objectively determined structural parameters for the galaxies, ellipticity and the bulge/total light ratio, might be helpful in resolving this issue. For example, Smail et al. (1997) compare the ellipticity distributions of the MORPHS E and S0 intermediate-$`z`$ galaxies with those from an Andreon et al. (1996) study of Coma Cluster galaxies as a consistency check of the MORPHS classifications.

We have therefore examined the structural properties of the CL1358+62 galaxies measured by the Medium Deep Survey (MDS) group555The MDS catalog is based on observations with the NASA/ESA HST, obtained at the STSCI, operated by AURA., Ratnatunga, Griffiths & Ostrander (1999). The MDS group has published structural properties for 70% of the CL1358+62 galaxies in our morphological catalog. The missing 30% are located near frame edges or in one mosaic frame that is not yet included in the MDS database. The MDS group has chosen the best fitting of four structural models for the objects in their catalogs: star, disk, bulge, or disk + bulge, accounting for the point spread function of HST. If a galaxy model is chosen, the MDS group fit the ellipticity of the disk, bulge or disk and bulge separately as appropriate. We focus on two structural parameters derived from these fits: the ratio of bulge to total light, and the weighted ellipticity. The ratio of bulge to total light follows trivially from the best fit model, or from the fits to the disk + bulge model. We calculate the weighted ellipticity from the MDS disk and bulge ellipticities, weighting by the fractions of light in the disk and bulge.

In Figures 4 and 5 we plot the distributions of the bulge to total light ratio for the E and S0 galaxies with $`I<21`$ in the DF/MF/PvD and AD samples, respectively. Excepting the differences in numbers, the distributions for both E’s and S0’s look remarkably similar for the two sets of classifications.

In Figures 6 and 7 we plot the distribution of weighted ellipticities for the same E and S0 galaxies ($`I<21`$), again showing the DF/MF/PvD and AD samples independently. Caution must be exercised when comparing to these to other measures of ellipticity since the MDS numbers are corrected for the HST PSF. A larger fraction of the AD E’s have ellipticities exceeding 0.2, but the mean AD E ellipticity is 0.22, only slightly larger than the DF/MF/PvD mean of 0.17. The ellipticities of the two samples of S0’s are similar: AD finds a mean ellipticity of 0.46 and DF/MF/PvD find a mean ellipticity of 0.40. The sizable difference in the numbers of E and S0 galaxies found by the two sets of classifiers is not reflected in a large difference between the structural parameters for the two samples of E’s or S0’s. We conclude that although the total number of early-type galaxies is well established, the SO to E ratio in CL1358+62 is uncertain.

## 4 Morphological Composition of CL1358+62 and Evidence for Evolution

We have learned that the differences between the two sets of classifications rise steeply below $`I=21`$, suggesting this as a practical limit for our morphological study. This is also conveniently close to the effective limit of our spectroscopic completeness. We have redshifts for 277666In one case, a spectrum was obtained of a pair of galaxies separated by 0.7′′, one (#1295) at $`I=21.17`$ and the other (#1297) at $`I=20.92`$. We have assigned the measured velocity (cz=99657) to both galaxies. Galaxies #1481 and #1483 may have both fallen within the spectrograph slit. We assign the measured velocity (cz=99792) to #1483, which is 1.2 mag brighter. of the 518 galaxies in the morphological sample, and 191 of these are cluster members by the criteria given in Fisher et al. (1998): 0.31461 $`<`$ z $`<`$ 0.34201. The spectroscopic completeness is 89% for the galaxies brighter than $`I=20.5`$ (corresponding to $`M_V=20)`$, falling to 59% for $`20.5<I<21`$, 33% for $`21<I<21.5`$, and 9% for galaxies with $`21.5<I<22`$.

Table 2 lists positions, $`I`$ magnitudes, both sets of morphological classifications, and radial velocities for galaxies brighter than $`I`$=21.

### 4.1 Morphological Composition

We may study the morphological composition of the subsample of known members, which is nearly complete to the MORPHS’s depth of $`M_V=20`$, without concern about background galaxy subtraction. The subsample of known cluster members to $`I=20.5`$ (or $`M_V=20`$, see $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 2) contains 138 galaxies. DF/MF/PvD classify 27$`\pm `$4% of these as E, 44$`\pm `$6% as S0, 29$`\pm `$5% as S, with 1 unclassified galaxy. (The errors here and in the following discussions account only for the Poisson statistics of the number of galaxies per classification bin.) AD classifies 35$`\pm `$5% as E, 38$`\pm `$5% as S0, and 27$`\pm `$4% as S. In both cases, the total early type population is $``$72%. To $`M_V`$=-20, then, the only difference between the two groups of classifiers is the relative numbers of E’s and S0’s.

We consider also the complete photometric sample to a depth of $`I=21`$ (or $``$$`M_V=19.5`$), where a small background correction is necessary. To $`I=21`$ our sample contains 298 galaxies, for which we have 236 redshifts (79.2% completeness). Of the 236 galaxies with redshifts, 65$`\pm `$8 are nonmembers, yielding a foreground/background count of 82$`\pm `$10 after correcting for the spectroscopic completeness. We determine the morphological composition of the foreground/background galaxies directly from our spectroscopic sample, which contains 86 foreground/background galaxies. DF/MF/PvD classify 3% E, 13% S0, 77% S, and 6% mergers. AD classifies 11% E, 9% S0, 71% S, and 9% mergers. We average these classifications, and adopt a background composition of 7% E, 11% S0, 74% S and 8% mergers. For comparison, Dressler et al. (1997) adopt a morphological composition of 10% E, 10% S0, and 80% S.

After correcting for background, to $`I=21`$, DF/MF/PvD find a population of 25$`\pm `$4% E’s, 46$`\pm `$5% S0’s, 29$`\pm `$6% S’s, and 0$`\pm `$1% mergers. AD finds 36$`\pm `$4% E’s, 36$`\pm `$5% S0’s, 28$`\pm `$6% S’s, and 1$`\pm `$1% mergers. These results are indistinguishable from those for the brighter spectrosopic sample, with $``$72% early-types in both sets of classifications.

### 4.2 Morphological Evolution

We search for morphological evolution in CL1358+62 by comparing its population with that of equivalent low-$`z`$ clusters. Judging which low-$`z`$ clusters are equivalent is somewhat uncertain, but we take as an approximation low-$`z`$ clusters with a similar number of galaxies within a fixed metric aperture, allowing us to correct for the effects of the morphology-density relation. We use the nearby cluster catalog of Dressler (1980), reanalyzed and summarized in Dressler et al. (1997) as a benchmark. We use the subset of high concentration clusters (10 of 55) in the low-$`z`$ sample for comparison, because CL 1358+62 was selected for its high x-ray luminosity and has a concentration index C$``$0.49 (Fabricant, McClintock & Bautz (1991)).

The data for the 10 high-concentration clusters are plotted in Fig. 12 of Dressler et al. (1997). There are an average of $``$63 cluster galaxies within a radius of 1450 kpc in these clusters to $`M_V`$=-20.4. In CL1358+62, there are $``$114 cluster members within this radius to $`M_V`$=-20.4, so CL1358+62 is richer than the average cluster in the low-$`z`$ sample. However, the low-$`z`$ sample does contain a high-concentration cluster as rich as CL1358+62: the Coma Cluster. Furthermore, the density difference between CL1358+62 and the average low-$`z`$ reference cluster, 0.3 dex, is comparable to the bin size in the morphology-density relation plots in Dressler et al. (1997).

The comparison between the morphological composition of the CL1358+62 sample to $`M_V`$=-20 and the low-$`z`$ reference sample is made in Table 3 and Figure 8. The DF/MF/PVD S0/E ratio, 1.6$`\pm `$0.3, differs at only 1.4$`\sigma `$ confidence from the low-$`z`$ reference sample ratio of 2.1$`\pm `$0.2. AD’s ratio, 1.1$`\pm `$0.2, differs from the the low-$`z`$ reference sample ratio at 3.5$`\sigma `$ confidence.

Despite this difference in the S0/E ratio, we stress that both classifications for CL1358+62 yield fractions of early types (E+S0), $``$72%, and late types (S), $``$28%, that are identical within the errors to the low-$`z`$ reference sample. We can therefore draw a robust conclusion from the two sets of morphological classifications: CL1358+62 does not contain an elevated population of spiral galaxies compared with low $`z`$ reference clusters. This contrasts with the results of Andreon, Davoust & Heim (1997) and and Couch et al. (1998) for other intermediate $`z`$ clusters. Our work suggests that the early type/spiral classifications are likely to be secure, implying that the populations of intermediate $`z`$ clusters vary significantly, even after accounting for the effects of the low $`z`$ morphology-density relation.

This conclusion about the spiral population in CL1358+62 limits the range of physical models for evolution in CL1358+62, even allowing for our uncertainty about the E/S0 classifications. As we mentioned earlier, the AD classifications have the strong advantage of the same classifier at low and intermediate $`z`$. However, given the different character of the low-$`z`$ photographic images and the intermediate-$`z`$ WFPC2 images, we must acknowledge the possibility of systematic, redshift-dependent classification uncertainties. Figure 1 provides some reason to be cautious about this issue. Because we do not understand in detail the reasons for the differences between the two sets of visual classifications, we cannot be positive that the two sets of classifications bound our uncertainties. However, the best we can do at present is to leave the issue of E/S0 classifications open, and to explore the consequences of both sets of classifications below.

The DF/MF/PvD classifications would imply that cluster evolution from $`z=0.33`$ to the present does not affect the cluster morphological composition or its morphology-density relation within the observed 1.4 Mpc radius aperture. Figure 9 shows this relation for CL1358+68, binning the background subtracted data to I=22 ($`M_V`$=-18.5) radially about the dominant central galaxy. Since we are looking only for radial trends, using the deeper sample is appropriate here. The average galaxy density in each of four radial bins (0–1, 1–2, 2–3, and 3–5 arcmin) is the abscissa for this histogram. The galaxy densities in Figure 9 have been normalized to a $`M_V`$=-20 limit to allow comparison with the low-$`z`$ reference sample. We find that the morphology-density relation for CL1358+62 is indistinguishable within the errors from the low-$`z`$ relation (to $``$$`M_V`$=-20) shown in Figure 3 of Dressler et al. (1997).

The AD classifications suggest an evolutionary mechanism that decreases the fraction of E’s, increases the fraction of S0’s, while leaving the fraction of spirals unchanged. Assuming that there is no plausible mechanism for directly converting E’s into S0’s, we can exclude models that transform the observed $`z`$=0.33 cluster spirals into S0’s without accretion of additional galaxies. In order to transform the $`z`$=0.33 AD morphological mix into the low-$`z`$ reference sample population while accreting the smallest number of galaxies, the cluster population would increase by 50%. Approximately 70% of the accreted galaxies would become S0’s by the present day, and 30% spirals.

## 5 The Morphological-Spectral Connection

While a great deal has been learned about the galaxy population in intermediate redshift clusters from relatively small samples of spectra, we must remember that even present-day clusters of galaxies are a heterogeneous group, differing widely in their degree of virialization. Because cluster relaxation may drive galaxy evolution, the range in cluster galaxy populations may be large at any redshift. For this reason, it is desirable to connect the morphological and spectral properties of a large sample of galaxies in each of a number of clusters directly.

We have spectral classifications from Fisher et al. (1998) sorting each of the galaxies with spectra into one of the four categories: (1) absorption lines only, (2) emission lines present, (3) emission lines plus strong Balmer absorption lines, and (4) k+a (also called E+A). Category (4) contains galaxies with the normal absorption lines of E/S0 galaxies plus strong Balmer absorption lines. Emission line galaxies have \[OII\] 3727 Å emission with equivalent width (EW) $`>`$5 Å. If Hδ absorption of $`>`$4 Å EW is detected for an emission line galaxy, the galaxy is classified as emission plus Balmer lines. Galaxies with \[(Hδ \+ Hγ \+ Hβ)/3\] EW greater than 4 Å, but \[OII\] emission with $`<`$5 Å EW, are classified as k+a. We refer the reader to Fisher et al. (1998) for a more complete summary of the spectral properties of these galaxies and a comparison with spectra of low-$`z`$ galaxies. Table 4 and Figure 10 summarize the comparison between the spectral and morphological properties for the 191 cluster members in common with Fisher et al. (1998), using the DF/MF/PvD classifications.

In rough terms, the bulk of the CL1358+62 galaxies follow the morphological-spectral correlation expected for bright field galaxies at low redshift: the preponderance of the E and S0 galaxies have pure absorption line spectra, while the fraction of galaxies with emission lines rises for the late type spirals. Dressler et al. (1999) found a similar behavior for galaxies in the MORPHS sample; see also Poggianti (1999). We do know, however, that the percentage of galaxies with emission lines and strong Balmer absorption lines, $``$19%, is higher than the $``$6% content of these galaxies in comparable low $`z`$ clusters (Dressler (1987), see also Fisher et al. (1998)).

If we use the AD classifications for the CL1358+62 galaxies, these conclusions do not change significantly. The most interesting difference between the two sets of morphological classifications is that DF/MF/PvD classify all the E+A galaxies as types S0 to Sb, while AD classifies these galaxies as having a wider range of morphologies from E to Sbc.

## 6 Discussion and Conclusions

For CL1358+62, we have acquired a unique data set including a large mosaic of HST fields and extensive spectroscopy that allows us to unambiguously determine cluster membership for galaxies with $`M_V<20`$. We have directly compared the morphological classifications of two sets of classifiers for the galaxies in CL1358+62. The two sets of classifiers agree that (to a limit of $`M_V`$=-20) the fraction of early type galaxies (and therefore spirals) in this cluster at $`z`$=0.33 is indistinguishable from the fraction in comparable low-$`z`$ clusters. In contrast, previous workers, Andreon, Davoust & Heim (1997) and Couch et al. (1998), who also studied WFPC2 images of clusters at z$``$0.3, found an elevated population of spirals compared with low-$`z`$ reference samples. Because our work confirms the reliability of early-type/spiral classifications from intermediate $`z`$ WFPC2 observations, we conclude that this is evidence for a dispersion in the evolution of intermediate-$`z`$ clusters.

The two groups of classifiers differ on ratio of E to S0 galaxies in CL1358+62. DF/MF/PvD find a population of S0 galaxies (S0/E=1.6$`\pm `$0.3) that is within 1.4$`\sigma `$ of the low-$`z`$ reference sample, while AD finds a significantly smaller ratio (1.1$`\pm `$0.2). This systematic difference is most likely related to the fact that the transition between S0’s and intermediate luminosity E’s is rather gradual. Many of the intermediate luminosity E’s are thought to have disks, e.g. Scorza et al. (1998), Rix & White (1990), and Jorgensen & Franx (1994). It may only be possible to resolve this issue by direct model fitting to images at low and intermediate $`z`$.

Even though we conclude that we have not reliably determined the ratio of S0’s to E’s among the early types, our work significantly restricts possible evolutionary models. If we accept the MF/DF/PvD classifications, evolution must preserve the fraction of E’s, S0’s and S’s as well as the morphology-density relation. If the AD classifications are correct, evolution must decrease the fraction of E’s and increase the fraction of S0’s while maintaining the fraction of S’s. A possible mechanism for driving the evolution of the morphological mix in this latter fashion is accretion of additional galaxies from the spiral-rich infall region that become predominantly S0’s. The cluster population within an $``$1 Mpc radius must increase by a minimum of 50% from $`z`$=0.5 to the present day in order convert an intermediate $`z`$ population rich in E’s to a low-$`z`$ population rich in S0’s. It will be interesting to see whether such accretion can be produced in simulations of cluster formation. In most cluster formation scenarios, massive clusters form by the merging of pre-existing massive clusters with (presumably) similar populations of early type galaxies. It may therefore be difficult to double the ratio of S0 to E galaxies.

We compare our morphological classifications to our previous spectral classifications and conclude that the morphologies of the spectrally “active” galaxies are as might be expected from the low-$`z`$ field population: the galaxies with emission lines are predominently spirals and the k+a (or E+A) post-starburst galaxies are typically early type disk galaxies (S0–Sb).

We wish to acknowledge the generous contributions of Alan Dressler to this paper, including his independent classifications and insightful comments. We thank Gus Oemler for checking the classifications and for thoughtful comments on the manuscript, which led to several improvements. We thank Margaret Geller for a critical reading of an earlier version of the manuscript and helpful comments. Our referee, Ian Smail, and our editor, Greg Bothun, both made insightful comments that helped us clarify the paper.

APPENDIX

SYSTEMATIC EFFECTS OF MEASUREMENT ERRORS

The effects of classification errors on the distribution of types can be important. Quantifying these effects is difficult because morphological classification is a subjective procedure, but we can gain some insight by considering simple models for the errors. We begin by assuming that the numerical type is based on a one dimensional measurement with a simple, constant error. This simple model would imply that any peaks in the distribution of types would be softened. If we adopt nominal intrinsic fractions of S:S0:E of 0.20:0.53:0.27, as is approximately correct for the inner 600 kpc of low redshift clusters (Dressler et al. (1997)), the errors will automatically decrease the fraction of S0’s, and enhance the fraction of E’s and S’s.

We can calculate an upper limit to the loss of S0’s for our nominal 20:53:27 (S:S0:E) population with this model for the errors. We assume that the types are scattered with a mean absolute deviation (MAD) of 1, and all intermediate types are divided equally between adjacent types. The outcome of this experiment is a distribution of 0.27:0.38:0.34 (S:S0:E). In this case, all galaxies scattered beyond the normal type boundaries were assigned to the boundary type (i.e. E). A MAD of 1 may be an overestimate as the difference in the types assigned by the two groups of classifiers is of this order. The intrinsic errors are $`\sqrt{2}`$ smaller if the errors are independent. For these smaller errors the resulting distribution would be 0.24:0.43:0.33 (S:S0:E). In either case, the results serve to illustrate that the systematic effects can be very significant.

Let us consider a second, more physical model for the visual classification errors. Here, we assume that morphological type is based on two independent variables with continuous distributions: bulge-to-total light fraction ($`f_b`$), and asymmetric features due to spiral arms ($`A`$). This is very similar to the quantitative classification devised by Abraham et al. (1996). Galaxies with low $`A`$ will be classified as early type ($`t<0`$) and then divided into E’s or S0’s based on whether $`f_b`$ is above or below a critical value. It has been argued that most $`L`$ ellipticals have faint disks, e.g. Rix & White (1990) and Jorgensen & Franx (1994). Similarly, the spiral classification will be based on a combination of $`f_b`$ and $`A`$.

If the intrinsic distribution of $`f_b`$ is flat, then errors in $`f_b`$ will not change the ratio of S0’s to E’s. However, if the intrinsic distribution of $`f_b`$ is peaked, the errors will have a systematic effect. The sign depends on the details of the intrinsic $`f_b`$ distributions and the size of the errors. Contributing to this uncertainty, the errors can also be asymmetric, if for example, faint extended disks are missed in noisy data. The situation is similar for errors in $`A`$, where E’s and Sa’s now share a boundary. Extensive simulations are required to estimate the systematic effects of limited S/N on classification errors, taking into account the the point spread function of WFPC. We will undertake this effort in a future paper.


text:
# Close limit of grazing black hole collisions: non-spinning holes

## I Introduction

The phrase “collision of black holes” has an aura of a mysterious and exotic happening that is not far from the reality of such an event. A black hole is not an ordinary object defined by the amount and properties of the material of which it is made. Rather it is a region from which no signal can escape. The surface, the black hole horizon, bounding this region is defined by the formal “no escape” property. Unlike the surface of an ordinary object the horizon has no local properties that would be sensed by an observer with the bad fortune to fall inward through it. A collision of two holes is the process in which two no-escape regions merge to become a single, larger, region of no escape. In the last few years such mergers have become the focus of much research attention, for two not entirely independent reasons.

The first reason is the development of numerical relativity . General relativity, Einstein’s theory of gravity, sets the dynamics of space-time via a set of nonlinear partial differential equations of such complexity that analytic solutions have been limited to two classes: solutions of high symmetry, or solutions based on approximation techniques, such as linearized weak field theory. The study of Einstein’s equations on computers has been viewed as the key to finding more general asymmetric strong field solutions and it was natural for this key to be be applied to black hole collisions. Black holes are incontrovertibly strong field regions, but single isolated black holes are stationary solutions of Einstein’s theory, and the simplifying symmetry of time independence allows for closed form well-understood solutions . Collisions of black holes, on the other hand, are necessarily nonstationary as well as being crucially strong-field events. It is known that the collision will result in a single final black hole and in the generation of gravitational waves carrying off some of the mass energy originally associated with the holes. But this is all that is known with certainty. The nature of the merging of the horizons, in the general collision, is not even qualitatively understood.

A reasonably complete understanding awaits progress in numerical relativity, and the wait has been longer than anticipated. The solution of general black hole collisions on computers has proved to be remarkably difficult. There is, however, a class of cases in which reliable answers are available. If the collision is a ’head-on’ collision along a straight line, then there is rotational symmetry about the line of the collision. Though the collision is still highly dynamic and nonlinear, the simplifications afforded by this symmetry reduce the computational demands sufficiently that the collision could successfully be simulated even in the mid 1970’s, and run with good reliability in the mid 1990’s. The simplification of head-on collisions, however, masks some of the physics of the most interesting types of collisions, the fully three dimensional collisions at the end point of the inspiral of a mutually orbiting pair of black holes.

The second development that directed attention to black hole collisions is the advent of sensitive gravitational wave detectors. In the next few years, several interferometric gravitational wave observatories (the LIGO project in the US, the VIRGO and GEO projects in Europe and the TAMA project in Japan ) may be capable of detecting gravitational waves. Whether near term searches are successful will depend more than anything else on the strength of astrophysical sources. Attributes of a good generator of gravitational waves include strong gravitational fields and high velocities, so black hole processes are a natural source to consider. It is astrophysically plausible that black holes form binary associations with other objects, including other black holes . Due to the loss of energy by the emission of gravitational radiation, the separation and period of the binary orbits would decrease. If the binary consists of two black holes, the inspiral would end with a rapid strong field merger that has the potential to be a powerful source of detectable gravitational waves .

The whole process of inspiral generates gravitational radiation, but in the early large-separation stages the radiation is relatively weak and is reasonably well described by Newtonian gravity theory and Post-Newtonian extensions of it . It is only the final strong field merger that could in principle produce a powerful burst of gravitational waves, but at this point only one parameter of the burst is reliably known. The characteristic frequency of the waves is inversely proportional to the mass of the final black hole formed, and works out to be on the order of $`10^3`$ Hz for a 10$`M_{}`$ hole, a typical expected mass of a “stellar” sized hole. For supermassive holes of mass $`10^6M_{}`$ typical of galactic nuclei, the waves would be less than 1 Hz. The maximum sensitivity of the next generation of gravitational wave detectors occurs at frequency around 100 Hz and the detectors will be ideally suited to waves from a black hole with mass of several hundred $`M_{}`$. Some recent observations offer indirect evidence that black holes in this range may exist. If they do not, then the detection of the collision of black holes may require the deployment of space-based detectors sensitive to the low frequency waves produced by supermassive holes.

The ratio of the masses in a binary determines both how difficult it is to analyze, and how exciting it is as a potential source. If the mass of a black hole $`M_1`$ is much larger than the mass of its binary companion $`M_2`$, then the smaller mass object can be treated as a perturbation to the well understood spacetime of the larger mass black hole. The equations that describe perturbations are linear, and hence relatively easily dealt with in general. In the specific case of perturbations to black hole spacetimes, the techniques of calculation were worked out in the 1970s and resulted in the Regge-Wheeler and Zerilli equations  for perturbations of Schwarzschild (nonrotating) black holes, and in the Teukolsky  equation for perturbations of Kerr (rotating) black holes. The relatively easily analyzed  “particle limit” case $`M_2M_1`$ may be of interest in connection, say, with neutron stars merging with supermassive black holes, but this process cannot give the hoped for high power. It is easy to show the gravitational wave power generated scales in the masses as $`(M_2/M_1)^2`$. High power requires roughly equal masses, and this means the simplifications of the particle limit do not apply to the most interesting sources.

If not directly applicable to equal mass inspiral, the clarity of the particle limit can, at least, help us to formulate questions about the nature of the endpoint of inspiral, like the existence of a last stable circular orbit. As a particle orbits a black hole it reaches a radius at which it can no longer stably orbit with slowly decreasing radius and it begins a rapid inward plunge. For the inspiral of two roughly equal mass holes it can be imagined that the binary gradually spirals inward or that it reaches a point at which a discontinuous plunge begins. If the late orbits are being degraded rapidly enough by the emission of gravitational radiation, there might not even be any meaning to late stage “stability.” This uncertainty about even the qualitative nature of the late stage of the inspiral is related to an important, but totally unresolved, question: How does the inspiraling binary shed enough angular momentum to form a black hole? In a relativist’s units in which $`c=G=1`$, a black hole must have a total angular momentum $`J`$ that is limited by the maximum angular momentum $`J=M^2`$ that a rotating (Kerr) black hole can possess. Until the binary pair is close, its angular momentum will be above this limit, but technical considerations limit the rate at which angular momentum can be shed in gravitational waves at very late stages. If both black holes of the pair are rapidly rotating with angular momentum in the same direction the shedding appears to present a barrier to the formation of the final single black hole. It is possible that even the qualitative details of the late stage inspiral depend on the angular momentum of the inspiraling binary.

The set of possibilities is considerable and the answers are important both to our understanding of nonlinear gravitational interactions and to an understanding of gravitational wave sources. Real answers will require advances in numerical relativity that will be several years in coming, but interest in the questions justifies approximation methods that can help, even slightly, to close some of the wide open questions. We take such an approach here. We offer an estimate of the gravitational radiation generated during the late stage of inspiral of two black holes. Our method involves a number of assumptions and limitations that constrain its applicability and reliability, but for all its shortcomings it is one step towards a complete understanding.

The approximation method we use, the “close limit,”  takes advantage of the property of a black hole horizon. Late in the merger of the binary the single horizon of the final black hole engulfs the entire binary. All the complex structure of the binary will be inside that final horizon, and cannot influence spacetime outside the horizon. It is only what is outside the horizon that can generate gravitational waves that can be detected by distant observers. Since the ultimate fate of the merger is a stationary black hole, it follows that sufficiently late in the merger what is outside the hole will be a perturbation of the final stationary hole. Thus the gravitational waves generated during the latest stage of inspiral can be computed using the techniques of perturbations of black hole spacetimes, with the Zerilli, Regge-Wheeler, and Teukolsky equations.

To understand how the close limit method is to be used, it is necessary to consider the general problem addressed by numerical relativity. Einstein’s field equations are divided into “initial value” equations and equations of time evolution . The initial value equations determine the nature of spacetime at a chosen initial moment. The solutions of these initial value equations are the initial values for the remaining differential equations of Einstein’s theory, the equations that determine the spacetime (including its gravitational wave content) to the future of the initial time. The two tasks of numerical relativity are first to find an initial value solution representing a moment in the life of the colliding holes, and second to find the future spacetime for those initial values. The more computationally difficult task is that of evolving to the future and the codes that accomplish this task tend to be unstable for long time evolutions. For long evolutions to be avoided, the initial value solutions must be chosen to be a moment late in the life of the inspiral. If that moment is late enough, the close limit method can be brought to bear and evolution can be carried out with the stable linearized equations of perturbation theory. But choosing too late a starting moment for evolution creates a new difficulty.

The connection of an initial value solution to a “sensible” physical configuration for the binary is reasonably secure only if the binary pair is well separated. At close separations, the gravitational field of each of the binary holes strongly affects the other hole, and the individual mass, individual angular momentum, and physical separation of the holes lose clear meaning. The problem then requires navigating between the Scylla of numerical instabilities for evolution, and the Charybdis of uncertain initial conditions. By using a very late initial moment and linearized evolution, the close limit method completely avoids the former hazard.

There are reasons beyond speculation to believe that close limit evolutions give useful answers. Numerical relativity results are available for axisymmetric head-on collisions. These represent evolution of a number of initial value solutions, in particular the closed form solution due to Misner, containing a single parameter representing the initial separation of equal mass holes in units of the mass of the spacetime (in $`c=G=1`$ units). This separation index defines a parameterized family of initial value solutions. Choices of this parameter can be made corresponding to large or small initial separation. When numerical relativity and close limit results are compared it is seen that agreement is excellent for small initial separations, and is surprisingly good even when the initial configuration is not close enough for a horizon to engulf the entire binary. Arguments can be made also, that the gravitational waves calculated in the late stage of inspiral are not highly sensitive to details of initial data. Particularly interesting in this regard is work by Abrahams and Cook.

In the past several years the close limit method has been extensively studied for head-on collisions of boosted and spinning holes and compared with the results of numerical relativity. Most notably, second order perturbation theory has been developed for the close limit method. In this process of comparison much has been learned about the strengths and limitations of the close limit method, with the goal of applying the method to problems that cannot yet be handled with numerical relativity. The present work represents the first example of this. We report here the results of the application of the close limit method for the three dimensional problem of the late stage inspiral of two black holes.

We will use the close limit method for the initial data families constructed by the Bowen and York  method and the associated “punctures” families . It is known that these families possess an artificial radiation content when one considers black holes that are close, but such content is also known to be moderate . An important advantage of these methods is that they are typically the starting point for numerical relativity, and thus close limit evolution of these starting points can be compared with the numerical evolution of these same initial data when such evolutions become available. The most important disadvantage, for our purposes, is that the Bowen-York family does not include the Kerr solution, the solution for a rotating hole. This precludes finding a family of initial value solutions that goes, in the limit of small initial separation, to a Kerr black hole. With Bowen-York initial value solutions, then, we cannot consider a collision that will result in a rapidly rotating hole. Rather, we limit our attention to collisions involving a modest amount of total angular momentum and consider the angular momentum as well as the initial separation to be a perturbation of a nonrotating final hole. It it should also be mentioned that currently fashionable astrophysical scenarios suggest that the individual holes might not carry a significant amount of spin  in realistic black hole collisions.

The organization of this paper is as follows: in the next section we review the method for obtaining the initial data and describe the approximations involved. In the following two sections we discuss how to set up the perturbative formalism geared towards evolution. Since the collisions have net angular momentum we will evolve them both as a perturbation of a rotating and a non-rotating black hole. The comparison of both approaches is given in the subsequent section and we will see that insight is gained by treating the problem in two different ways. We end with a discussion of the results in terms of waveforms and radiated energies and we describe a puzzle in the calculation of the angular momentum radiated.

For the reader who wishes to be spared all the details, we summarize our results in a brief punchline: the final ringdown of the inspiraling collision of two non-spinning black holes is unlikely to radiate more than $`1\%`$ of the mass of the system or more than $`0.1\%`$ of its angular momentum in gravitational waves.

## II Initial data

To evolve a spacetime in general relativity, one needs to provide initial data, a 3-geometry $`g_{ab}`$ and an extrinsic curvature $`K_{ab}`$, that solve Einstein’s equations on some starting hypersurface (i.e., at some starting time). For two black holes, this is an easy task if the holes are far apart, since one can superpose the solutions for two individual holes ignoring their interactions. When the black holes are close on the initial hypersurface, the astrophysically correct initial data is the solution corresponding to what would have evolved during the binary inspiral, but such an evolution cannot be computed with present day techniques. One must therefore use a somewhat artificial initial data solution that is a best guess at a representation of close black holes. The need for such a guess is one of the sources of uncertainty in our result.

### A Summary of the Bowen–York construction:

The initial value equations for general relativity are,

$`^a(K_{ab}g_{ab}K)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (1)
$`{}_{}{}^{3}RK_{ab}K^{ab}+K^2`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (2)
where $`g_{ab}`$ is the spatial metric, $`K_{ab}`$ is the extrinsic curvature and $`{}_{}{}^{3}R`$ is the scalar curvature of the three metric. If we propose a 3-metric that is conformally flat $`g_{ab}=\varphi ^4\widehat{g}_{ab}`$, with $`\widehat{g}_{ab}`$ a flat metric, and $`\varphi ^4`$ the conformal factor, and we use a decomposition of the extrinsic curvature $`K_{ab}=\varphi ^2\widehat{K}_{ab}`$, and assume maximal slicing $`K_a^a=0`$, the constraints become,

$`\widehat{}^a\widehat{K}_{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (3)
$`\widehat{}^2\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}\varphi ^7\widehat{K}_{ab}\widehat{K}^{ab},`$ (4)
where $`\widehat{}`$ is a flat-space covariant derivative.

To solve the momentum constraint, we start with a solution that represents a single hole with linear momentum $`P`$ ,

$$\widehat{K}_{ab}^{\mathrm{one}}=\frac{3}{2r^2}\left[2P_{(a}n_{b)}(\delta _{ab}n_an_b)P^cn_c\right].$$
(5)
In this expression for the conformally related extrinsic curvature at some point $`x^a`$, the quantity $`n_b`$ is a unit vector, in the “base” flat space with metric $`\widehat{g}_{ab}`$, directed from a point representing the location of the hole to the point $`x^a`$. The symbol $`r`$ represents the distance, in the flat base space, from the point of the hole to $`x^a`$. It is straightforward to show that the solution of the Hamiltonian constraint corresponding to eq. (5) corresponds to a spacetime with ADM momentum $`P_a`$.

The next step is to modify this to represent holes centered at $`x=\pm L/2`$ in the conformally flat metric. Since the momentum constraint is linear, we can simply add two expressions of the above form,

$$\widehat{K}_{ab}^{\mathrm{two}}=\widehat{K}_{ab}^{\mathrm{one}}\left(xxL/2,P_y=P\right)+\widehat{K}_{ab}^{\mathrm{one}}\left(xx+L/2,P_y=P\right).$$
(6)
We will choose in further expressions to use a polar coordinate system in the flat space determined by $`\widehat{g}_{ab}`$ centered in the mid-point separating the two holes and label the polar coordinates as $`(R,\theta ,\varphi )`$. So $`R`$ will be the distance in the flat space from the midpoint between the holes.

To solve the Hamiltonian constraint 4, we introduce an approximation, (the slow approximation) which we will show is enough for our purposes. In fact, in this approximation the solution for the conformal factor turns out to be the familiar Misner  solution if one chooses the topology of the slice to have a single asymptotically flat region, or the Brill–Lindquist  solution if there are three asymptotically flat regions.

### B The slow approximation

We assume that the black holes are initially close, and that the initial momentum $`P`$ is small. We denote by $`\stackrel{}{n}^+`$ and $`\stackrel{}{n}^{}`$ the normal vectors corresponding, respectively, to the one hole solutions at $`x=+L/2`$ and at $`x=L/2`$, and we define $`R`$ to be the distance to a field point, in the flat conformal space, from the point midway between the holes. For large $`R`$, the normal vectors $`\stackrel{}{n}^+`$ and $`\stackrel{}{n}^{}`$ almost cancel. More specifically $`\stackrel{}{n}^+=\stackrel{}{n}^{}+O(L/R)`$. A consequence of this is that the total initial $`\widehat{K}^{ab}`$ is first order in $`L/R`$, and its ($`R,\theta ,\phi `$ coordinate basis) components can be written as

$$\widehat{K}_{ab}=\frac{3PL}{8R^3}\left[\begin{array}{ccc}8\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}2\phi & 0& 8R\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \\ 0& R^2(5+\mathrm{cos}2\theta )\mathrm{sin}2\phi & 2R^2\mathrm{sin}2\phi \mathrm{sin}2\theta \\ 8R\mathrm{sin}^2\theta & 2R^2\mathrm{sin}2\phi \mathrm{sin}2\theta & R^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}2\phi (1+3\mathrm{cos}2\theta )\end{array}\right].$$
(7)
This solution for $`\widehat{K}_{ab}`$ is first order, both in $`P`$ and $`L`$. Thus the source term in the Hamiltonian constraint is quadratic in $`P`$. If we choose to find a solution to the conformal factor to first order in $`P`$ (which should give us a good approximation in the case of slowly moving holes), we can ignore this quadratic source term. So now, the Hamiltonian constraint looks like the one for zero momentum, which is simply the Laplace equation. A well known solution to this, is the Misner solution . This solution, is characterized by a parameter $`\mu _0`$ which describes the separation of the two throats. We can relate this parameter to the conformal distance $`L`$ in the following way ,

$$L/M=\frac{\mathrm{coth}\mu _0}{2\mathrm{\Sigma }_1}\mathrm{\Sigma }_1\underset{n=1}{}\frac{1}{\mathrm{sinh}n\mu _0}.$$
(8)
To clarify: in the slow approximation we are considering, the data we use in our simulations consists of the extrinsic curvature proposed by Bowen and York and the conformal factor due to Misner. This might appear as odd, since the conformal factor of Misner is “symmetrized” through the throats and the extrinsic curvature due to Bowen and York is not. What we do is not inconsistent, it is just a different (and perhaps from a certain point of view less natural) choice of boundary conditions for the fields. In practice, in the close limit and to first order in perturbation theory, the conformal factor of Misner differs from that of Brill and Lindquist by a numerical factor that can be absorbed in the definition of the separation of the holes .

Some readers may be disturbed by the slow approximation, since in the computation of certain quantities, for instance the ADM mass, the higher order terms in the expansion in terms of the momentum are crucial. We have already discussed this in detail in previous head-on simulations . The bottomline is that to get an accurate estimate of the ADM mass for high values of the momentum one indeed needs a full solution of the Hamiltonian constraint and not a “slow approximation” solution. For the values of the separations and the momenta we will consider in this paper ($`a<0.5`$) the ADM mass computed with the slow approximation and the one computed with the full solution differ by less than $`10\%`$ so we will ignore this difference.

We must now map the coordinates of the initial value solution to the coordinates for the Schwarzschild/Kerr (in the vanishing spin limit) background. To do this, we interpret the $`R`$ as the isotropic radial coordinate of a Schwarzschild spacetime, and we relate it to the usual Schwarzschild radial coordinate $`r`$ by $`R=(\sqrt{r}+\sqrt{r2M})^2/4`$. From this we arrive at the following expression for the components of the extrinsic curvature,

$$K_{ab}=\frac{3PL}{8r^3}\left[\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{8\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}2\phi }{12M/r}& 0& \frac{8r\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{\sqrt{12M/r}}\\ 0& r^2(5+\mathrm{cos}2\theta )\mathrm{sin}2\phi & 2r^2\mathrm{sin}2\phi \mathrm{sin}2\theta \\ \frac{8r\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }{\sqrt{12M/r}}& 2r^2\mathrm{sin}2\phi \mathrm{sin}2\theta & r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}2\phi (1+3\mathrm{cos}2\theta )\end{array}\right].$$
(9)
Here we have used the fact that

$$\varphi ^2\varphi _{\mathrm{Mis}}^2\varphi _{\mathrm{Schw}}^2=r/R=\frac{1}{\sqrt{12M/r}}\frac{dr}{dR}.$$
(10)
## III The close limit as a perturbation of a Schwarzschild hole

In this paper we will evolve the initial data we just constructed using the perturbative evolution equations for linearized first order perturbations: the Zerilli equation in the case of a Schwarzschild background and the Teukolsky equation in the case of a Kerr background. We need to construct the initial data for these equations in terms of the metric and extrinsic curvature we discussed above. In this section we discuss the setup of initial data and evolution of the problem as a perturbation of a Schwarzschild black hole, using the Zerilli–Regge–Wheeler formalism.

### A Setting up the initial data for the Zerilli function

Given the three metric and the extrinsic curvature, one can explicitly construct the zeroth and first order term of a power series expansion in a fiducial time variable $`t`$ of the space-time metric. From this expression one can read off the appropriate coefficients of the multipolar expansion of the metric in the Regge–Wheeler  notation. The only nonvanishing perturbations at $`t=0`$ are,

$`H_2[\mathrm{}=2,m=\pm 2]`$ $`=`$ $`K[\mathrm{}=2,m=\pm 2]=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{6\pi }{5}}}{\displaystyle \frac{8ML^2}{\sqrt{r}(\sqrt{r}+\sqrt{r2M})^5}}`$ (11)
$`H_2[\mathrm{}=2,m=0]`$ $`=`$ $`K[\mathrm{}=2,m=0]=2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{5}}}{\displaystyle \frac{8ML^2}{\sqrt{r}(\sqrt{r}+\sqrt{r2M})^5}}`$ (12)
We compute the time derivative of these quantities, using the extrinsic curvature $`K_{ij}`$ obtained in the last section. The nonvanishing ones are,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{H_2[\mathrm{}=2,m=2]}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`i24\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{30}}}PL{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{r2M}}{r^3\sqrt{r}}}`$ (13)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{H_2[\mathrm{}=2,m=2]}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{H_2[\mathrm{}=2,m=2]}{t}}`$ (14)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{K[\mathrm{}=2,m=2]}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`i\sqrt{30\pi }PL{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{r2M}}{r^3\sqrt{r}}}`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{K[\mathrm{}=2,m=2]}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{K[\mathrm{}=2,m=2]}{t}}`$ (16)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{G[\mathrm{}=2,m=2]}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`i\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{6\pi }{5}}}PL{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{r2M}}{r^3\sqrt{r}}}`$ (17)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{G[\mathrm{}=2,m=2]}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G[\mathrm{}=2,m=2]}{t}}`$ (18)
where $`i`$ is the imaginary unit. (Here we are using the standard conventions for the spherical harmonics. Notice that the $`m=2`$ and $`m=2`$ perturbations are individually complex, but when they are added to give the total perturbation the resulting function of $`t,r,\theta `$ and $`\phi `$ is real, as of course it must be.

We also have an odd parity contribution,

$$\frac{^{\text{odd}}h_1[\mathrm{}=1,m=0]}{t}=8\sqrt{3\pi }\frac{PL}{r^2}.$$
(19)
This perturbation represents the difference between the Kerr solution that represents the rotating space-time and the Schwarzschild background used in the perturbative approach. To first order it decouples from all other perturbations, and in fact is unchanging in time, corresponding to the conservation of angular momentum to first order in the perturbations. The change over time in the quantity induced by second order perturbations, will be discussed below in connection with the radiation of angular momentum.

The Zerilli function is defined by (see for instance ),

$`\psi _{(\mathrm{},m)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2r(r2M)}{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)(\lambda r+3M)}}\left[H_{2}^{}{}_{(\mathrm{},m)}{}^{}r{\displaystyle \frac{K_{(\mathrm{},m)}}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{r3M}{r2M}}K_{(\mathrm{},m)}\right]`$ (21)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{\lambda r+3M}}\left[K_{(\mathrm{},m)}+(r2M)\left({\displaystyle \frac{G_{(\mathrm{},m)}}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{r^2}}h_{1}^{}{}_{(\mathrm{},m)}{}^{}\right)\right].`$
Therefore, for $`t=0`$ we have

$$\psi _{(2,m)}(0,r)=\frac{r(r2M)}{3(2r+3M)}\left[H_{2}^{}{}_{(2,m)}{}^{}(0,r)r\frac{K_{(2,m)}(0,r)}{r}\right]+\frac{r}{3}K_{(2,2)}(0,r).$$
(22)
and

$`\dot{\psi }_{(2,m)}(0,r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{r(r2M)}{3(2r+3M)}}\left[\dot{H_2}_{(2,m)}(0,r)r{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{K}_{(2,m)}(0,r)}{r}}+3r{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{G}_{(2,m)}}{r}}\right]`$ (24)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{r}{3}}\dot{K}_{(2,2)}(0,r).`$
After some simplifications we have the initial data for the Zerilli function,

$$\psi _{(2,2)}(0,r)=4\sqrt{\frac{2\pi }{15}}ML^2\frac{r(7\sqrt{r}+5\sqrt{r2M})}{(2r+3M)(\sqrt{r}+\sqrt{r2M})^5}$$
(25)
and

$$\dot{\psi }_{(2,2)}(0,r)=\frac{i\sqrt{30\pi }}{5}PL\frac{(4r+3M)\sqrt{r2M}}{r^{5/2}(2r+3M)}$$
(26)
and the Zerilli function for $`(\mathrm{}=2,m=2)`$ is the complex conjugate of $`\psi _{(2,2)}(t,r)`$. The initial data for the $`\mathrm{}=2,m=0`$ Zerilli function is

$`\psi _{(2,0)}(0,r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{5}}}{\displaystyle \frac{ML^2r(7\sqrt{r}+5\sqrt{r2M})}{(2r+3M)(\sqrt{r}+\sqrt{r2M})^5}}`$ (27)
$`\dot{\psi }_{(2,0)}(0,r)`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (28)
### B Evolution of the Zerilli function and computation of physical quantities

Given the Cauchy data from the last section, the time evolution is obtained from the Zerilli equation ,

$$\frac{^2\psi _{(\mathrm{},m)}}{t^2}+\frac{^2\psi _{(\mathrm{},m)}}{r_{}^2}+V(r_{})\psi _{(\mathrm{},m)}=0,$$
(29)
where $`V(r_{})`$ is the ($`m`$-independent) Zerilli potential,

$$V(r_{})=2\left(1\frac{2M}{r}\right)\frac{\lambda ^2r^2\left[(\lambda +1)r+3M\right]+9M^2(\lambda r+M)}{r^3(\lambda r+3M)^2},$$
(30)
where $`\lambda =(\mathrm{}1)(\mathrm{}+2)/2`$ and $`r_{}=r+2M\mathrm{ln}(r/2M1)`$.

We need to establish a convenient formula for the radiated energy, similar to that present in  but applied to the non-axisymmetric case. We start from the expression of the radiated energy computed via the Landau–Lifshitz pseudo-tensor following the notation and derivations of ,

$$\frac{d\mathrm{Power}}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{16\pi r^2}\left[\left(\frac{\dot{h}_{\theta \varphi }}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }\right)^2+\frac{1}{4}\left(\dot{h}_{\theta \theta }\frac{1}{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }\dot{h}_{\varphi \varphi }\right)^2\right],$$
(31)
and translating to the Regge–Wheeler notation and integrating on solid angles we get,

$$\mathrm{Power}=\frac{3}{16\pi }\left[2\left|\dot{\psi }_{(2,0)}\right|^2+4\left|\dot{\psi }_{(2,2)}\right|^2\right]$$
(32)
and one can obtain the radiated energy integrating over time. The power naturally comes out in units of the mass of the background spacetime.

To compute the radiated angular momentum one could also start by considering the Landau–Lifshitz pseudo-tensor and construct and asymptotic expression for angular momentum flux. This approach was pursued, for instance, in  to compute expressions for the radiation of angular momentum in terms of multipoles. An alternative approach is to simply compute the change in the angular momentum of the spacetime, which we characterize to linear order in perturbation theory through the function,

$$r_{}^{2}{}_{}{}^{\text{odd}}h_0,_r(r,t)2r^{\text{odd}}h_0(r,t)r^2^{\text{odd}}h_1,_t(r,t).$$
(33)
This is a first order gauge invariant if $`^{\text{odd}}h_0`$, and $`^{\text{odd}}h_1`$ are first order perturbations. Moreover, for $`\mathrm{}=1,m=0`$, this gauge invariant is constant, equal to $`4\sqrt{3\pi }J`$, where $`J`$ is the total angular momentum, if the perturbations are axially symmetric.

If we look at second order perturbations we find

$$\frac{}{t}[r_{}^{2}{}_{}{}^{\text{odd}}h_0,_r(r,t)2r^{\text{odd}}h_0(r,t)r_{}^{2}{}_{}{}^{\text{odd}}h_1,_t(r,t)]=𝒮_{\text{Jdot}}$$
(34)
where $`𝒮_{\text{Jdot}}`$ is a ‘source’, quadratic in first order perturbations.

Therefore the change in angular momentum, due to radiation may be obtained by integrating $`𝒮_{\text{Jdot}}`$ for all $`t`$ (or from $`t=0`$ to $`t=\mathrm{}`$, it makes no difference), in the limit $`r\mathrm{}`$. After several simplifications and cancelling terms that result from integration by parts, we end up with

$$\mathrm{\Delta }J=\frac{3i}{4\pi }\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}_0^{\mathrm{}}\left[\psi _{(2,2)}(r,t)\frac{\psi _{(2,2)}(r,t)}{t}\psi _{(2,2)}(r,t)\frac{\psi _{(2,2)}(r,t)}{t}\right]𝑑t$$
(35)
If we write

$$\psi _{(2,2)}(r,t)=\text{Re}(\psi )+i\text{Im}(\psi )$$
(36)
we have

$$\psi _{(2,2)}(r,t)=\text{Re}(\psi )i\text{Im}(\psi )$$
(37)
and we find

$$\mathrm{\Delta }J=\frac{3}{2\pi }\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}_0^{\mathrm{}}\left[\text{Im}(\psi )\frac{\text{Re}(\psi )}{t}\text{Re}(\psi )\frac{\text{Im}(\psi )}{t}\right]𝑑t.$$
(38)
We have checked by explicit substitution that this form coincides with the results from the flux formulas of Thorne . It reassures our confidence in the consistency of the Regge–Wheeler–Zerilli perturbative formalism to notice that the changes to second order are in accordance with the first order flux.

## IV Evolution as a perturbation of a Kerr black hole

To treat the problem as a perturbation of a Kerr black hole we need to set up initial data and evolve the Teukolsky equation. The formalism for setting up initial data in terms of Cauchy metric data was developed in , we only give a brief sketch here and refer the reader to that paper for further details.

The relevant Weyl scalar for gravitational radiation is

$$\psi _4=C_{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }n^\alpha \overline{m}^\beta n^\gamma \overline{m}^\delta ,$$
(39)
since it is directly related to outgoing gravitational waves. We can rewrite this as

$$\psi _4=R_{ijkl}n^i\overline{m}^jn^k\overline{m}^l+4R_{0jkl}n^{[0}\overline{m}^{j]}n^k\overline{m}^l+4R_{0j0l}n^{[0}\overline{m}^{j]}n^{[0}\overline{m}^{l]},$$
(40)
which in turn can be written in terms of hypersurface quantities $`g_{ij}`$ and $`K_{ij}`$. For the last term in this expression, we can use vacuum Einstein equations to eliminate terms that have time derivatives of $`K_{ij}`$. Also, we are interested merely in the first order perturbations of this scalar. Putting all this together, the final result for the first order expansion of the Weyl scalar is ,

$`\psi _4`$ $`=`$ $`\left[R_{ijkl}+2K_{i[k}K_{l]j}\right]_{(1)}n^i\overline{m}^jn^k\overline{m}^l4N_{(0)}\left[K_{j[k,l]}+{}_{j[k}{}^{p}K_{l]p}^{}\right]_{(1)}n^{[0}\overline{m}^{j]}n^k\overline{m}^l`$ (42)
$`+4N_{(0)}^2\left[R_{jl}K_{jp}K_l^p+KK_{jl}\right]_{(1)}n^{[0}\overline{m}^{j]}n^{[0}\overline{m}^{l]}`$
where $`N_{(0)}=(g_{\text{kerr}}^{tt})^{1/2}`$ is the zeroth order lapse, $`n^i,\overline{m}^j`$ are two of the null vectors of the (zeroth order) tetrad, Latin indices run from 1 to 3, and the brackets are computed to only first order (zeroth order excluded).

This expression can be used, to obtain the time derivative of the Weyl scalar too. We simply replace the first order quantities above by their time derivatives (which can be obtained via the Einstein equations).

In our treatment, the extrinsic curvature and the metric, from the last section, shall be treated as a perturbation of the corresponding Kerr hypersurface quantities. Since we attempt calculations only to first order in $`PL`$ (which we identify with $`Ma`$, where $`M`$ is the mass of the background Kerr black hole and $`a`$ its angular momentum parameter), the Kerr 3-metric is (in this approximation) conformally flat. Hence we justify using the Bowen York recipe for constructing initial data for the inspiral problem.

### A Initial Data for the Teukolsky function:

Using the methodology and expressions we just discussed, the initial data for the Teukolsky function, $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\rho ^4\psi _4`$, where $`\rho =1/(ria\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$, is:

For the azimuthal modes, $`m=\pm 2`$

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{\sqrt{2\pi }}=\left[\frac{3rM(2Mr)L^2}{32R^2(2R+M)}\pm i\frac{3}{8}Ma\left(1\frac{2M}{r}\right)^{\frac{3}{2}}\right](\mathrm{cos}\theta \pm 1)^2$$
(43)
$$\frac{\dot{\mathrm{\Psi }}}{\sqrt{2\pi }}=\left[\frac{3(2Mr)M^2L^2}{16rR^2(2R+M)}\pm i\frac{3Ma}{16r^2}(2r21M)\left(1\frac{2M}{r}\right)^{\frac{3}{2}}\right](\mathrm{cos}\theta \pm 1)^2$$
(44)
And for the azimuthal mode, $`m=0`$

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{\sqrt{2\pi }}=\frac{3rM(r2M)L^2}{16R^2(2R+M)}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta $$
(45)
$$\dot{\mathrm{\Psi }}=\frac{2M}{r^2}\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(46)
Here, $`R`$ is the Schwarzschild isotropic radial coordinate.

### B Evolution of the Data using the Teukolsky equation

Given the Cauchy data from the last section, the time evolution is obtained from the Teukolsky equation ,

$`\left\{\right[a^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta {\displaystyle \frac{(r^2+a^2)^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}]_{tt}{\displaystyle \frac{4Mar}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}_{t\phi }+4[r+ia\mathrm{cos}\theta {\displaystyle \frac{M(r^2a^2)}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}]_t`$ (47)
$`+\mathrm{\Delta }^2_r\left(\mathrm{\Delta }^1_r\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}_\theta \left(\mathrm{sin}\theta _\theta \right)+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }}{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right]_{\phi \phi }`$ (48)
$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}[{\displaystyle \frac{a(rM)}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}+{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{cos}\theta }{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }}]_\phi (4\mathrm{cot}^2\theta +2)\}\mathrm{\Psi }=0,`$ (49)
where $`M`$ is the mass of the black hole, $`a`$ its angular momentum per unit mass, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }r^2+a^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta `$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }r^22Mr+a^2`$.

The radiated energy is given by ,

$$\frac{dE}{dt}=\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}\left\{\frac{1}{4\pi r^6}_\mathrm{\Omega }𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\left|_{\mathrm{}}^t𝑑\stackrel{~}{t}\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{~}{t},r,\theta ,\phi )\right|^2\right\},d\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{sin}\theta d\vartheta d\phi ,$$
(50)
and the angular momentum carried away by the waves can be obtained from ,

$$\frac{dJ_z}{dt}=\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}\left\{\frac{1}{4\pi r^6}\mathrm{Re}\left[_\mathrm{\Omega }𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\left(_\phi _{\mathrm{}}^t𝑑\stackrel{~}{t}\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{~}{t},r,\theta ,\phi )\right)\left(_{\mathrm{}}^t𝑑t^{}_{\mathrm{}}^t^{}𝑑\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(\stackrel{~}{t},r,\theta ,\phi )\right)\right]\right\}.$$
(51)
## V Results of the evolutions

We have evolved the Zerilli and Teukolsky equations using codes that have already been tested in other situations , . Figure 1 shows the amplitude of the waves, depicting the “+” component of the polarization, defined in terms of the Zerilli function as,

$$h_+=\frac{1}{r^2}\left(h_{\theta \theta }\frac{1}{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }h_{\varphi \varphi }\right)=\frac{\sqrt{30}}{4\sqrt{\pi }r}\left(\sqrt{6}\psi _{(2,0)}+(2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta )\left[\psi _{(2,2)}e^{2i\varphi }+\psi _{(2,2)}e^{2i\varphi }\right]\right).$$
(52)
In figure 2 we give a spatial visualization of the waves, by plotting the “$`\times `$” polarization of the waves, defined as,

$$h_\times =\frac{1}{r^2}h_{\theta \varphi }=\frac{i\sqrt{30}}{4r\sqrt{\pi }}\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sin}\theta \left(\psi _{(2,2)}e^{2i\varphi }\psi _{(2,2)}e^{2i\varphi }\right),$$
(53)
The figure suggests a rotation pattern, but as can be seen in the accompanying movie, the shown patterns just propagate outward.

Let us turn now to the evaluation of the radiated energies and angular momentum. Figure 3 shows the radiated energy as a function of the initial angular momentum, for a fixed separation of the holes. The figure compares the Regge–Wheeler–Zerilli (Z) and Teukolsky (T) calculations. As expected, they differ for large values of the angular momentum, since the Teukolsky calculation contains terms higher than linear in the angular momentum. As we explained before, one is not keeping consistently these higher order terms so one cannot argue that the Teukolsky result is “better”. A conservative view that can be taken should be that both results disagree when higher order terms start to be important, and this gives us a rough measure of the error in the Zerilli calculation. We therefore conclude that for the separation in question, one should not trust first order perturbation theory beyond $`a=0.5`$. One should stress that this view can be somewhat overconservative, our experience with explicit second order calculations for the head-on collisions  shows that one should include all second order terms to have a consistent formulation and a reliable set of “error bars”. This is not accomplished by the first order Teukolsky formalism in this context. In this respect, second order Teukolsky results for this problem will be quite welcome . The second order Zerilli calculations appear as quite prohibitive in complexity.

The separation of the holes quoted in figure 3 requires some explanation. The simulations start with the construction of the initial data by the Bowen-York procedure we described in section II A. As discussed there, the construction starts with the introduction of a fiducial conformal space. In such a space the separation is $`0.91M`$ where $`M`$ is the ADM mass of the spacetime. The radius of each hole (if they were non-moving, the momentum slightly changes the shape of the horizon and the radius, see ) is approximately $`M/4`$, from there the separation of $`3.64M`$ quoted in the caption. To translate to more commonly used terms, one could convert the number to the $`\mu _0`$ parameter in the Misner solution, which for our case is $`\mu _0=1.5`$. Finally, another commonly used measure of the separation is the length of the geodesic threading the throat in the Misner geometry. In terms of such a parameter, it is equivalent to $`2.75`$ times the ADM mass of the spacetime or approximately $`5.5`$ times the mass of each individual hole.

A remarkable aspect of figure 3 is that linear perturbation theory has a tendency to overestimate the radiated energies for large values of the perturbative parameter, at least from our experience with head-on collisions of non-boosted , boosted  and some preliminary unpublished results we have for spinning holes. This would suggest that, if the same behavior takes place for the inspiralling collisions, “reality” should lie below the curve corresponding to the Regge–Wheeler–Zerilli formalism (Z). This would indicate that the estimation obtained using the Teukolsky formalism is actually worse for the particular kind of collision under consideration. This is what we were alluding to when we warned in the introduction that it was not obvious that representing the spacetime as a perturbation of a non-rotating hole was a worse choice than of that of a Kerr hole.

We now turn to the evaluation of the radiated angular momentum. This is depicted in figure 4.

The two curves shown in 4 disagree significantly. They do not even agree for very small values of the angular momentum. We have checked that there is no numerical error: if in the Teukolsky evolution one keeps the initial data intact but “turns off” the $`a`$-dependent terms in the evolution equation, the RWZ straight line is reproduced. It should be noticed that the radiated angular momentum is a qualitatively different quantity insofar as its computation than the energy. The energy is roughly obtained by squaring and integrating the waveforms. The angular momentum depends on subtle phase differences. It is much more easy to disturb the calculation of the radiated angular momentum than that of the radiated energy. This, in particular, points out to the potential difficulty of estimating this kind of quantity in full numerical simulations, where phase lags in the waveforms due to grid stretching and other problems are well known. In our approach it appears that the potentially inconsistent higher order terms in the angular momentum we introduce when considering a rotating background are causing problems in the computation of radiated angular momentum. If one wishes to be ultra-conservative, one could simply conclude that both calculations only predict the correct result for zero angular momentum. Otherwise, one could conclude that for this family of initial data the Teukolsky approach really only works for non-rotating black holes, something suggested by the fact that the background spacetime is only recovered in the close limit with vanishing angular momentum. At the moment we can only say that the accurate computation of the radiated angular momentum for this problem is an open problem. It is likely that the RWZ estimate is correct, but we do not have “error bars” (even rough ones) to validate this prediction.

## VI Conclusions

We have used the “close limit” to estimate the radiation in the collision at the end of the inspiral of two equal mass nonrotating black holes. The assumptions and restrictions were: (i) only the “ringdown” radiation was computed; (ii) we assumed that a simple initial data set gave an adequate representation of appropriate astrophysical conditions; (iii) we assumed that the final hole is not near the extreme Kerr limit; (iv) we used close limit estimates of the evolution. Our main conclusion is that the energy radiated in ringdown is probably not more than 1% of the total mass of the system, and the angular momentum radiated is not more than 0.1% of the initial angular momentum. The most serious uncertainty in this result is the possibility that the radiation from the early merger stage of coalescence is very much larger than the ringdown radiation. With our 1%$`Mc^2`$ estimate, collisions of black holes of $`100M_{}`$ would be detectable with signal to noise of 6 out to distances on the order of 200Mpc by the initial LIGO configuration and to distances of 4Gpc with the advanced LIGO detector.

## VII Acknowledgements

We wish to thank two anonymous referees for many constructive criticisms on the initial submitted version of the paper. This work was supported in part by grants NSF-INT-9512894, NSF-PHY-9357219, NSF-PHY-9423950, NSF-PHY-9734871, NSF-PHY-9800973, NSF-PHY-9407194, by funds of the University of Córdoba, Utah, and Penn State. We also acknowledge support of CONICET and CONICOR (Argentina). JP acknowledges support from the the John S. Guggenheim foundation and hospitality from ITP at UC Santa Barbara during completion of the manuscript. RJG is a member of CONICET.