Gravitational wave extraction from an inspiraling configuration of merging black holes

TL;DR

This paper introduces new numerical techniques for accurately extracting gravitational waveforms from binary black hole simulations, improving the modeling of radiation during inspiral, plunge, and ringdown phases.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel gauge condition and evolve black holes without excising interiors, enabling precise waveform extraction in inspiraling binary black hole simulations.

Findings

Waveform convergence demonstrated

Mass-energy conservation achieved with 3% radiation emission

Effective modeling of final plunge and ringdown phases

Abstract

We present new techniqes for evolving binary black hole systems which allow the accurate determination of gravitational waveforms directly from the wave zone region of the numerical simulations. Rather than excising the black hole interiors, our approach follows the "puncture" treatment of black holes, but utilzing a new gauge condition which allows the black holes to move successfully through the computational domain. We apply these techniques to an inspiraling binary, modeling the radiation generated during the final plunge and ringdown. We demonstrate convergence of the waveforms and good conservation of mass-energy, with just over 3% of the system's mass converted to gravitional radiation.