Radiation content of conformally flat initial data

We study the radiation of energy and linear momentum emitted to infinity by the head-on collision of binary black holes, starting from rest at a finite initial separation, in the extreme mass ratio (particle) limit. For these configurations we identify the radiation that may be attributed to a choice of the initial three geometry. This identification suggests that for evolution of holes from initial proper separations L(0)greater than or equal to7M, the radiated energy and momentum from head-on collisions will not be dominated by that choice. For non-head-on orbits, where the amount of radiation is orders of magnitude larger, computations may be even less sensitive to the choice of initial three geometry.