Locating Boosted Kerr and Schwarzschild Apparent Horizons

TL;DR

This paper presents a finite-difference method for efficiently and accurately locating apparent horizons in boosted Kerr and Schwarzschild black hole spacetimes, using a Kerr-Schild metric and 3+1 decomposition.

Contribution

It introduces a novel numerical approach capable of locating distorted apparent horizons in boosted black hole spacetimes with high precision.

Findings

Method efficiently locates distorted horizons

Accurate in boosted Kerr and Schwarzschild cases

Applicable to complex black hole simulations

Abstract

We describe a finite-difference method for locating apparent horizons and illustrate its capabilities on boosted Kerr and Schwarzschild black holes. Our model spacetime is given by the Kerr-Schild metric. We apply a Lorentz boost to this spacetime metric and then carry out a 3+1 decomposition. The result is a slicing of Kerr/Schwarzschild in which the black hole is propagated and Lorentz contracted. We show that our method can locate distorted apparent horizons efficiently and accurately.