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MaxWallis
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The inspiralling oscillations of ~20ms period (reducing to ~5ms) appear much stronger than the ringdown of ~ 3ms period (noisy, at resolution limit). Merger happens at ~440ms in the figure of Abbott et al. (Phys Res Lett link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102). This would agree with published calculations of the black-hole merger process giving under 0.1% of the mass released in gravitational energy, while the LIGO studies found ~ 5% of the total mass (of ~60 solar masses) in the whole pulse. Yet descriptions tend to say the energy comes from the merger itself. Doesn’t most of the merger energy disappear in the black hole; while LIGO cannot be said to verify that under 0.1% comes out, but does verify the 5% release in the inspiralling?