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Authors: J. A. Gonzalez, M. D. Hannam, U. Sperhake, B. Brugmann, S. Husa

Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007

Abstract: Recent calculations of the recoil velocity in binary black hole mergers have found the kick velocity to be of the order of a few hundred km/s in the case of non-spinning binaries and about $500 $km/s in the case of spinning configurations, and have lead to predictions of a maximum kick of up to $1300 $km/s. We test these predictions and demonstrate that kick velocities of at least $2500 $km/s are possible for equal-mass binaries with appropriate alignments of the spins. Kicks of that magnitude are likely to have significant repercussions for models of black-hole formation, the population of intergalactic black holes and the structure of host galaxies.

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