Late-time tails in nonlinear evolutions of merging black hole binaries

Abstract: We study nonlinear evolutions of binary black hole mergers, uncovering power-law contributions generated by the long-range behaviour of the highly-curved dynamical spacetime. The result is achieved by exploiting the strong increase of the tail relevance due to binary eccentricity, recently observed in perturbative evolutions of a small-mass-ratio binary under accurate radiation reaction by Albanesi and collaborators [PhysRevD.108.084037]. We demonstrate the presence of this enhancement even in the nonlinear case of comparable-mass binary mergers in eccentric orbits, using the public RIT waveform catalog. The instantaneous frequency of the simulations displays large oscillations at intermediate to late-times, due to interference terms in the transition between a fast-decaying, constant-frequency quasinormal-mode driven regime, and a power-law, slowly-decaying one. The power-law exponent displays broad convergence with perturbative predictions, although longer and more accurate simulations will be needed to pinpoint the asymptotic value. Our results offer yet another confirmation of the highly predictive power of black hole perturbation theory in the presence of a source, even when applied to nonlinear solutions. The magnitude of the tail signal is within reach of gravitational-wave detectors measurements, unlocking the possibility of observationally investigating an additional set of general relativistic predictions on the long-range dynamics of relaxing compact objects.