Related papers: Alternatives to standard puncture initial data for…
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…
We present a new numerical code developed for the evolution of binary black-hole spacetimes using different initial data and evolution techniques. The code is demonstrated to produce state-of-the-art simulations of orbiting and inspiralling…
We solve for single distorted black hole initial data using the puncture method, where the Hamiltonian constraint is written as an elliptic equation in R^3 for the nonsingular part of the metric conformal factor. With this approach we can…
We develop a method to compute low-eccentricity initial data of black hole--neutron star binaries in the puncture framework extending previous work on other types of compact binaries. In addition to adjusting the orbital angular velocity of…
Standard choices of quasi-circular orbit parameters for black-hole binary evolutions result in eccentric inspiral. We introduce a conceptually simple method, which is to integrate the post-Newtonian equations of motion through hundreds of…
We present a new numerical scheme to solve the initial value problem for black hole-neutron star binaries. This method takes advantage of the flexibility and fast convergence of a multidomain spectral representation of the initial data to…
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…
We present approximate analytical solutions to the Hamiltonian and momentum constraint equations, corresponding to systems composed of two black holes with arbitrary linear and angular momentum. The analytical nature of these initial data…
We consider a series of distorted black hole initial data sets, and develop techniques to evolve them using the linearized equations of motion for the gravitational wave perturbations on a Schwarzschild background. We apply this to 2D and…
Initial data for evolving black-hole binaries can be constructed via many techniques, and can represent a wide range of physical scenarios. However, because of the way that different schemes parameterize the physical aspects of a…
Black hole binaries on non-eccentric orbits form an important subclass of gravitational wave sources, but it is a non-trivial issue to construct numerical initial data with minimal initial eccentricity for numerical simulations. We compute…
A shortcoming of current binary black-hole initial data is the generation of spurious gravitational radiation, so-called junk radiation, when they are evolved. This problem is a consequence of an oversimplified modeling of the binary's…
We present a method to construct conformally curved initial data for charged black hole binaries with spin on arbitrary orbits. We generalize the superposed Kerr-Schild, extended conformal thin sandwich construction from [Lovelace et al.,…
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 propose a new approach, based on the puncture method, to construct black hole initial data in the so-called trumpet geometry, i.e. on slices that asymptote to a limiting surface of non-zero areal radius. Our approach is easy to implement…
Currently the most popular method to evolve black-hole binaries is the ``moving puncture'' method. It has recently been shown that when puncture initial data for a Schwarzschild black hole are evolved using this method, the numerical slices…
The most general bound binary black hole (BBH) system has an eccentric orbit and precessing spins. The detection of such a system with significant eccentricity close to the merger would be a clear signature of dynamical formation. In order…
When simulating the inspiral and coalescence of a binary black-hole system, special care needs to be taken in handling the singularities. Two main techniques are used in numerical-relativity simulations: A first and more traditional one…
To describe a general bound binary black hole system, we need to consider orbital eccentricity and the misalignment of black holes' spin vectors with respect to the orbital angular momentum. While binary black holes produced through many…
We present techniques for long-term, stable, and accurate evolutions of multiple-black-hole spacetimes using the `moving puncture' approach with fourth- and eighth-order finite difference stencils. We use these techniques to explore…