Radiation-balanced simulations for binary inspiral

TL;DR

This paper introduces a stationary boundary condition approach to simulate binary black hole inspirals, nullifying radiation reaction to study non-Newtonian effects and provide initial data for numerical relativity.

Contribution

It proposes a novel stationary solution method that approximates inspiraling binaries by nullifying radiation reaction, aiding waveform extraction and initial data generation.

Findings

Developed a boundary condition to nullify radiation reaction.

Provided initial data for numerical relativity simulations.

Progressed in constructing 3D numerical solutions.

Abstract

The late stage of the inspiral of two black holes may have important non-Newtonian effects that are unrelated to radiation reaction. To understand these effects we approximate a slowly inspiralling binary by a stationary solution to Einstein's equations in which the holes orbit eternally. Radiation reaction is nullified by specifying a boundary condition at infinity containing equal amounts of ingoing and outgoing radiation. The computational problem is then converted from an evolution problem with initial data to a boundary value problem. In addition to providing an approximate inspiral waveform via extraction of the outgoing modes, our approximation can give alternative initial data for numerical relativity evolution. We report results on simplified models and on progress in building 3D numerical solutions.