Tidal interaction in binary-black-hole inspiral

Tidal torque may lead to important effects in the strong field interaction at the end point of the inspiral of two rapidly rotating black holes. We point out here that in such a case the exchange of spin and orbital angular momentum may significantly affect the energy and waveform of late stage gravitational waves, and may play an important role in the shedding of excess angular momentum. We argue that numerical relativity, the only tool for determining the importance of tidal torque, should be more specifically focused on binary configurations with aligned, large, angular momenta.