Strong field scattering of two black holes: Exploring gauge flexibility

Recent advances in post-Minkowskian (PM) gravity provide new avenues for the high precision modeling of compact binaries. In conjunction with the effective one body (EOB) formalism, highly accurate PM informed models of binary black holes on scattering trajectories have emerged. Several complementary approaches currently exist, in particular the spinning effective one body (SEOB)-PM model, the <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <a:msub> <a:mi>w</a:mi> <a:mrow> <a:mi>EOB</a:mi> </a:mrow> </a:msub> </a:math> framework and the recent lagrangian effective one body (LEOB) approach. These models incorporate PM results in fundamentally different ways, employing distinct resummation schemes and gauge choices. Notably, both SEOB-PM and LEOB have been used to compute gravitational waves of bound systems, showing excellent agreement with numerical relativity. The essential component to all of the models is the EOB mass-shell condition describing the dynamics of the two-body spacetime. In this work we will investigate how this mass-shell condition is constructed, paying particular attention to the impact of gauge choices and how they interact with different resummation schemes, showing that there is a strong dependence on both coordinate choice and EOB gauge. For the region of parameter space considered, we find that the best performing gauges coincide with the choices made in SEOB-PM and <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <c:msub> <c:mi>w</c:mi> <c:mrow> <c:mi>EOB</c:mi> </c:mrow> </c:msub> </c:math> , with other choices exhibiting worse performance. The case of spinning black holes is also considered, where the current techniques for spinning EOB-PM are reviewed and compared. We also introduce a new gauge based upon the centrifugal radius, which improves upon previous models, particularly for large and negative spins. This offers a promising avenue for further resummation of spin information within the EOB-PM framework.