Two Kerr Black Holes: Possible or Impossible?

[michael879]

Im trying to describe a system of two kerr black holes and I was wondering if this was even possible? I am currently taking a GR course but I've looked through the textbook and we only seem to deal with stationary solutions to einstein's field question (and no two-body problems).

 

[Mentz114]

It may well be possible, but it's not been done to my knowledge. The Kerr metric is a vacuum solution, and all its properties come from the spherical symmetry. The symmetry of 2 BHs is not so obvious or helpful.

 

[michael879]

yea that's what I thought.. damn..

 

[MeJennifer]

It is specific, but you might want to lookup the double Kerr solution.

Stephani in Exact Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations briefly mentions this in chapter 34.4.

 

[geoffc]

For two Schwarzschild black holes, the classic solution is due to Misner. A search for "Misner Inital Data" will pull up plenty of recent papers that might give you a derivation.

For Kerr black holes, check the paper here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9806017

 

[xantox]

Im trying to describe a system of two kerr black holes and I was wondering if this was even possible? I am currently taking a GR course but I've looked through the textbook and we only seem to deal with stationary solutions to einstein's field question (and no two-body problems).

The exact solution describing two Kerr black holes was presented in D. Kramer, G. Neugebauer, "The superposition of two Kerr solutions", Physics Letters A, 75:4, 259-261 (1980). It does not admit an equilibrium state.