Related papers: Conformally curved binary black hole initial data …
We perform several black-hole binary evolutions using fully nonlinear numerical relativity techniques at separations large enough that low-order post-Newtonian expansions are expected to be accurate. As a case study, we evolve an equal-mass…
The characteristic initial value problem has been implemented as a robust computational algorithm (the PITT NULL CODE), with direct application to binary black holes. The event horizon can be analyzed by characteristic techniques as a…
In numerical evolutions of binary black holes (BBH) it is desirable to easily control the orbital eccentricity of the BBH, and the number of orbits completed by the binary through merger. This paper presents fitting formulae that allow to…
We study the radiation of energy and linear momentum emitted to infinity by the headon collision of binary black holes, starting from rest at a finite initial separation, in the extreme mass ratio limit. For these configurations we identify…
We construct a closed-form, fully analytical 4-metric that approximately represents the spacetime evolution of non-precessing, spinning black hole binaries from infinite separations up to a few orbits prior to merger. We employ the…
We present a new approach to the problem of binary black holes in the pre-coalescence stage, i.e. when the notion of orbit has still some meaning. Contrary to previous numerical treatments which are based on the initial value formulation of…
We present the first results from a new method for computing spacetimes representing corotating binary black holes in circular orbits. The method is based on the assumption of exact equilibrium. It uses the standard 3+1 decomposition of…
Numerical relativity, applied to collisions of black holes, starts with initial data for black holes already in each other's strong field. The initial hypersurface data typically used for computation is based on mathematical simplifying…
We construct a fully analytic, general relativistic, nonspinning black hole binary spacetime that approximately solves the vacuum Einstein equations everywhere in space and time for black holes sufficiently well separated. The metric is…
We discuss the initial value problem of general relativity in its recently unified Lagrangian and Hamiltonian pictures and present a multi-domain pseudo-spectral collocation method to solve the resulting coupled nonlinear partial…
We obtain an explicit solution of the momentum constraint for conformally flat, maximal slicing, initial data which gives an alternative to the purely longitudinal extrinsic curvature of Bowen and York. The new solution is related, in a…
The purpose of this work is to construct asymptotically flat, time symmetric initial data with an apparent horizon of prescribed intrinsic and extrinsic geometry. To do this, we use the parabolic partial differential equation for…
Binary black hole simulations starting from quasi-circular (i.e., zero radial velocity) initial data have orbits with small but non-zero orbital eccentricities. In this paper the quasi-equilibrium initial-data method is extended to allow…
An orbiting black hole binary will generate strong gravitational radiation signatures, making these binaries important candidates for detection in gravitational wave observatories. The gravitational radiation is characterized by the orbital…
There is a significant possibility that astrophysical black holes with nearly-extremal spins exist. Numerical simulations of such systems require suitable initial data. In this paper, we examine three methods of constructing…
A complete formalism for constructing initial data representing black-hole binaries in quasi-equilibrium is developed. Radiation reaction prohibits, in general, true equilibrium binary configurations. However, when the timescale for orbital…
We present improvements to construction of binary black hole initial data used in SpEC (the Spectral Einstein Code). We introduce new boundary conditions for the extended conformal thin sandwich elliptic equations that enforce the excision…
General relativity predicts the gravitational wave signatures of coalescing binary black holes. Explicit waveform predictions for such systems, required for optimal analysis of observational data, have so far been achieved using the…
Construction of binary black hole initial data is a prerequisite for numerical evolutions of binary black holes. This paper reports improvements to the binary black hole initial data solver in the Spectral Einstein Code, to allow robust…
The ringdown phase of a black hole formed from the merger of two orbiting black holes is described by means of the close-limit (CL) approximation starting from second-post-Newtonian (2PN) initial conditions. The 2PN metric of point-particle…