In classical numerical relativity, marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTSs) are the main tool to locate and characterize black holes. For five decades it has been known that during a binary merger, a new outer horizon forms around the initial apparent horizons of the individual holes once they are sufficiently close together. However the ultimate fate of those initial horizons has remained a subject of speculation. Recent axisymmetric studies have shed new light on this process and this pair of papers essentially completes that line of research: we resolve the key features of the post-swallowing axisymmetric evolution of the initial horizons. This first paper introduces a new shooting-method for finding axisymmetric MOTSs along with a reinterpretation of the stability operator as the analogue of the Jacobi equation for families of MOTSs. Here, these tools are used to study exact solutions and initial data. In the sequel paper they are applied to black hole mergers.
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