11 research outputs found
On computations of angular momentum and its flux in numerical relativity
The purpose of this note is to point out ambiguities that appear in the
calculation of angular momentum and its radiated counterpart when some simple
formulae are used to compute them. We illustrate, in two simple different
examples, how incorrect results can be obtained with them. Additionally, we
discuss the magnitude of possible errors in well known situations.Comment: 8 pages. Minor improvements . To appear in Class. Quantum Gra
Toward a dynamical shift condition for unequal mass black hole binary simulations
Moving puncture simulations of black hole binaries rely on a specific gauge
choice that leads to approximately stationary coordinates near each black hole.
Part of the shift condition is a damping parameter, which has to be properly
chosen for stable evolutions. However, a constant damping parameter does not
account for the difference in mass in unequal mass binaries. We introduce a
position dependent shift damping that addresses this problem. Although the
coordinates change, the changes in the extracted gravitational waves are small.Comment: 15 pages, submitted to CQG for NRDA 2009 conference proceeding
Gravitational perturbations of Schwarzschild spacetime at null infinity and the hyperboloidal initial value problem
We study gravitational perturbations of Schwarzschild spacetime by solving a
hyperboloidal initial value problem for the Bardeen-Press equation.
Compactification along hyperboloidal surfaces in a scri-fixing gauge allows us
to have access to the gravitational waveform at null infinity in a general
setup. We argue that this hyperboloidal approach leads to a more accurate and
efficient calculation of the radiation signal than the common approach where a
timelike outer boundary is introduced. The method can be generalized to study
perturbations of Kerr spacetime using the Teukolsky equation.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure
Accurate evolutions of inspiralling neutron-star binaries: assessment of the truncation error
We have recently presented an investigation in full general relativity of the
dynamics and gravitational-wave emission from binary neutron stars which
inspiral and merge, producing a black hole surrounded by a torus (see
arXiv:0804.0594). We here discuss in more detail the convergence properties of
the results presented in arXiv:0804.0594 and, in particular, the deterioration
of the convergence rate at the merger and during the survival of the merged
object, when strong shocks are formed and turbulence develops. We also show
that physically reasonable and numerically convergent results obtained at
low-resolution suffer however from large truncation errors and hence are of
little physical use. We summarize our findings in an "error budget", which
includes the different sources of possible inaccuracies we have investigated
and provides a first quantitative assessment of the precision in the modelling
of compact fluid binaries.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. Minor changes to match published version. Added
figure 5 right pane
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
Modelling the final state from binary black-hole coalescences
Over the last few years enormous progress has been made in the numerical
description of the inspiral and merger of binary black holes. A particular
effort has gone into the modelling of the physical properties of the final
black hole, namely its spin and recoil velocity, as these quantities have
direct impact in astrophysics, cosmology and, of course, general relativity. As
numerical-relativity calculations still remain computationally very expensive
and cannot be used to investigate the complete space of possible parameters,
semi-analytic approaches have been developed and shown to reproduce with very
high precision the numerical results. I here collect and review these efforts,
pointing out the relative strengths and weaknesses, and discuss which
directions are more promising to further improve them.Comment: Submitted to CQG, LISA-7 Special Issu
Status of NINJA: the Numerical INJection Analysis project
The 2008 NRDA conference introduced the Numerical INJection Analysis project (NINJA), a new collaborative effort between the numerical relativity community and the data analysis community. NINJA focuses on modeling and searching for gravitational wave signatures from the coalescence of binary system of compact objects. We review the scope of this collaboration and the components of the first NINJA project, where numerical relativity groups shared waveforms and data analysis teams applied various techniques to detect them when embedded in colored Gaussian noise
Testing gravitational-wave searches with numerical relativity waveforms: Results from the first Numerical INJection Analysis (NINJA) project
The Numerical INJection Analysis (NINJA) project is a collaborative effort
between members of the numerical relativity and gravitational-wave data
analysis communities. The purpose of NINJA is to study the sensitivity of
existing gravitational-wave search algorithms using numerically generated
waveforms and to foster closer collaboration between the numerical relativity
and data analysis communities. We describe the results of the first NINJA
analysis which focused on gravitational waveforms from binary black hole
coalescence. Ten numerical relativity groups contributed numerical data which
were used to generate a set of gravitational-wave signals. These signals were
injected into a simulated data set, designed to mimic the response of the
Initial LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave detectors. Nine groups analysed this
data using search and parameter-estimation pipelines. Matched filter
algorithms, un-modelled-burst searches and Bayesian parameter-estimation and
model-selection algorithms were applied to the data. We report the efficiency
of these search methods in detecting the numerical waveforms and measuring
their parameters. We describe preliminary comparisons between the different
search methods and suggest improvements for future NINJA analyses.Comment: 56 pages, 25 figures; various clarifications; accepted to CQ
The NINJA-2 project: detecting and characterizing gravitational waveforms modelled using numerical binary black hole simulations
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