Simulations of non-equal mass black hole binaries with spectral methods

TL;DR

This paper develops spectral methods and techniques for simulating unequal mass, non-spinning black hole binaries, including initial data setup, eccentricity removal, and merger simulations, providing detailed results on their evolution and remnant properties.

Contribution

It introduces new spectral techniques and algorithms for accurately simulating unequal mass black hole binaries, extending existing methods to asymmetric cases.

Findings

Successfully simulated black hole binaries with mass ratios 2, 3, 4, and 6.

Analyzed the evolution of initial zero spins and remnant properties.

Achieved high accuracy in orbit, merger, and ringdown phases.

Abstract

This paper presents techniques and results for simulations of unequal mass, non-spinning black hole binaries with pseudo-spectral methods. Specifically, we develop an efficient root-finding procedure to ensure the black hole initial data have the desired masses and spins, we extend the dual coordinate frame method and eccentricity removal to asymmetric binaries. Furthermore, we describe techniques to simulate mergers of unequal mass black holes. The second part of the paper presents numerical simulations of non-spinning black hole binaries with mass ratios 2, 3, 4 and 6, covering between 15 and 22 orbits, merger and ringdown. We discuss the accuracy of these simulations, the evolution of the (initially zero) black hole spins, and the remnant black hole properties.