How black holes get their kicks: Radiation recoil in binary black hole mergers

Gravitational waves from the coalescence of binary black holes carry linear momentum, causing center of mass recoil. This radiation rocket'' has important implications for systems with escape speeds of order the recoil velocity. We describe new recoil calculations using high precision black hole perturbation theory to estimate the magnitude of the recoil for the slow inspiral’’ coalescence phase; coupled with a cruder calculation for the final ``plunge’', we estimate the total recoil imparted to a merged black hole. We find that velocities of many tens to a few hundred km/sec can be achieved fairly easily. The recoil probably never exceeds about 500 km/sec.