The Current Status of Binary Black Hole Simulations in Numerical Relativity

Since the breakthroughs in 2005 which have led to long term stable solutions of the binary black hole problem in numerical relativity, much progress has been made. I present here a short summary of the state of the field, including the capabilities of numerical relativity codes, recent physical results obtained from simulations, and improvements to the methods used to evolve and analyse binary black hole spacetimes.Comment: 14 pages; minor changes and corrections in response to referee

Summary of sessions B1/B2 and B2: relativistic astrophysics and numerical relativity

The numerical relativity session at GR18 was dominated by physics results on binary black hole mergers. Several groups can now simulate these from a time when the post-Newtonian equations of motion are still applicable, through several orbits and the merger to the ringdown phase, obtaining plausible gravitational waves at infinity, and showing some evidence of convergence with resolution. The results of different groups roughly agree. This new-won confidence has been used by these groups to begin mapping out the (finite dimensional) initial data space of the problem, with a particular focus on the effect of black hole spins, and the acceleration by gravitational wave recoil to hundreds of km s?1 of the final merged black hole. Other work was presented on a variety of topics, such as evolutions with matter, extreme mass ratio inspirals and technical issues such as gauge choices