[ELI5] if a (relatively) small black hole is orbiting a more massive black hole, as they eventually merge, would the matter be drawn back out of the singularity of the smaller?

Question

I understand that they consume matter and grow, and that black holes merge to form larger ones. But I’m curious if scientist know whether or not this takes place bit by bit, or whether because the matter can’t escape the singularity of the smaller one, it would be a case of the entire thing being eaten up all at once?

If the latter is the case, would this happen in an instant with a reaction, or just a slow process as it all gets enveloped?

To clarify: I’m aware that in some cases, ultramassive black holes have other black holes orbiting them, because I watched the kurzgesagt video on it, but that’s the extent of my knowledge

Many thanks

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

Question about what happens when the event horizons touch and the 2 black holes merge into a single black hole that is “wobbly” for a short time before it settles down into a new stable state. Let’s just suppose that singularities exist and each black hole has a singularity at its center. Can we calculate how quickly the 2 singularities move towards each other to form the new more massive singularity of the merged black hole? And is this speed still bounded by c?

For example, if the 2 black holes both have event horizons with a diameter of 0.1 light seconds, when the event horizons first touch the centers / singularities would be at a distance of 0.1 light seconds from each other. Does this mean that it would take at least 0.1 seconds (from our point of view) for the new black hole to stabilize, since the centers / singularities can’t move towards each other to form the new center / singularity faster than c?

Not a physicist so please excuse my very likely total misunderstanding of how astrophysics works.