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I was reading the paper about LIGO's detection of gravitational waves, and I wanted to know what the Schwarzschild Radius did. For example, I feel like the simulation here is oversimplified, and that reality wouldn't actually have that simple bump together of the two radii.

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This is a better simulation SXS did for the LIGO detection (still frame below), the two event horizons (Schwarzschild Radii as you say) just simply come together and merge quite effortlessly like two bubbles in a bath coming together and merging into one. I don't know if you were expecting something more dramatic than this but there is no reason to suggest its a violent event.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ I feel like it would be stronger especially from an outside perspective. Space-time is getting incredibly warped, so relative to us wouldn't the merging black holes look warped or be warped as well? $\endgroup$
    – Pulchritude
    Mar 3, 2016 at 16:19
  • $\begingroup$ youtube.com/watch?v=c-2XIuNFgD0 $\endgroup$
    – Pulchritude
    Mar 3, 2016 at 16:19
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    $\begingroup$ @Pulchritude That video is actually a good representation to what happens to spacetime during the merger, but the event horizons themselves are just following the potentials generated by the mass of the singularity inside, these will remain fairly spherical until the very last instance when the two horizons join and merge. $\endgroup$
    – Dean
    Mar 3, 2016 at 16:24
  • $\begingroup$ It is among the most violent events in the universe!!! Three solar masses were converted into gravitational wave energy. $\endgroup$
    – ProfRob
    Mar 3, 2016 at 18:15
  • $\begingroup$ A still more glorious dawn awaits... $\endgroup$
    – wogsland
    Feb 12, 2017 at 4:59

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