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Published September 16, 2005 | public
Journal Article Open

Evolution of Binary Black-Hole Spacetimes

Abstract

We describe early success in the evolution of binary black-hole spacetimes with a numerical code based on a generalization of harmonic coordinates. Indications are that with sufficient resolution this scheme is capable of evolving binary systems for enough time to extract information about the orbit, merger, and gravitational waves emitted during the event. As an example we show results from the evolution of a binary composed of two equal mass, nonspinning black holes, through a single plunge orbit, merger, and ringdown. The resultant black hole is estimated to be a Kerr black hole with angular momentum parameter a[approximate]0.70. At present, lack of resolution far from the binary prevents an accurate estimate of the energy emitted, though a rough calculation suggests on the order of 5% of the initial rest mass of the system is radiated as gravitational waves during the final orbit and ringdown.

Additional Information

©2005 The American Physical Society (Received 6 July 2005; published 14 September 2005) I would like to thank Carsten Gundlach et al. for describing their constraint-damping method for the Z4 system [13], and suggesting that it can be applied in a similar fashion with the harmonic scheme. I would also like to thank Matthew Choptuik, Luis Lehner, and Lee Lindblom for stimulating discussions related to this work. I gratefully acknowledge research support from NSF PHY-0099568, NSF PHY-0244906, and Caltech's Richard Chase Tolman Fund. Simulations were performed on UBC's vn cluster (supported by CFI and BCKDF), and the Westgrid cluster (supported by CFI, ASRI, and BCKDF).

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August 22, 2023
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