Transition from inspiral to plunge in binary black hole coalescences

Abstract
Combining recent techniques giving nonperturbative resummed estimates of the damping and conservative parts of the two-body dynamics, we describe the transition between the adiabatic phase and the plunge, in coalescing binary black holes with comparable masses moving on quasicircular orbits. We give initial dynamical data for numerical relativity investigations, with a fraction of an orbit left, and provide, for data analysis purposes, an estimate of the gravitational waveform emitted throughout the inspiral, plunge and coalescence phases.