Determine whether additional capture bands exist at unsampled separations

Determine whether additional gas-assisted binary-capture bands occur at unsampled initial radial separations beyond those covered by the simulated parameter grid for eccentric black-hole encounters in active-galactic-nucleus discs.

Background

The parameter sweep samples a finite interval of initial radial separation and finds capture regions concentrated in narrow, phase-dependent bands. Although no identified capture lies at either boundary of the sampled interval, the discrete sampling does not establish that all capture bands have been found.

The authors therefore leave unresolved whether further capture regions occur at unsampled values of the initial separation. Resolving this issue would require a broader and/or finer-grained exploration of the separation, eccentricity, and eccentric-phase parameter space.