The Well-posedness of the Null-Timelike Boundary Problem for Quasilinear Waves

The null-timelike initial-boundary value problem for a hyperbolic system of equations consists of the evolution of data given on an initial characteristic surface and on a timelike worldtube to produce a solution in the exterior of the worldtube. We establish the well-posedness of this problem for the evolution of a quasilinear scalar wave by means of energy estimates. The treatment is given in characteristic coordinates and thus provides a guide for developing stable finite difference algorithms. A new technique underlying the approach has potential application to other characteristic initial-boundary value problems.Comment: Version to appear in Class. Quantum Gra

Stable radiation-controlling boundary conditions for the generalized harmonic Einstein equations

This paper is concerned with the initial-boundary value problem for the Einstein equations in a first-order generalized harmonic formulation. We impose boundary conditions that preserve the constraints and control the incoming gravitational radiation by prescribing data for the incoming fields of the Weyl tensor. High-frequency perturbations about any given spacetime (including a shift vector with subluminal normal component) are analyzed using the Fourier-Laplace technique. We show that the system is boundary-stable. In addition, we develop a criterion that can be used to detect weak instabilities with polynomial time dependence, and we show that our system does not suffer from such instabilities. A numerical robust stability test supports our claim that the initial-boundary value problem is most likely to be well-posed even if nonzero initial and source data are included.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures; more numerical results and references added, several minor amendments; version accepted for publication in Class. Quantum Gra

Tails for the Einstein-Yang-Mills system

We study numerically the late-time behaviour of the coupled Einstein Yang-Mills system. We restrict ourselves to spherical symmetry and employ Bondi-like coordinates with radial compactification. Numerical results exhibit tails with exponents close to -4 at timelike infinity $i^+$ and -2 at future null infinity \Scri.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

A Scheme to Numerically Evolve Data for the Conformal Einstein Equation

This is the second paper in a series describing a numerical implementation of the conformal Einstein equation. This paper deals with the technical details of the numerical code used to perform numerical time evolutions from a "minimal" set of data. We outline the numerical construction of a complete set of data for our equations from a minimal set of data. The second and the fourth order discretisations, which are used for the construction of the complete data set and for the numerical integration of the time evolution equations, are described and their efficiencies are compared. By using the fourth order scheme we reduce our computer resource requirements --- with respect to memory as well as computation time --- by at least two orders of magnitude as compared to the second order scheme.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figure

3D simulations of Einstein's equations: symmetric hyperbolicity, live gauges and dynamic control of the constraints

We present three-dimensional simulations of Einstein equations implementing a symmetric hyperbolic system of equations with dynamical lapse. The numerical implementation makes use of techniques that guarantee linear numerical stability for the associated initial-boundary value problem. The code is first tested with a gauge wave solution, where rather larger amplitudes and for significantly longer times are obtained with respect to other state of the art implementations. Additionally, by minimizing a suitably defined energy for the constraints in terms of free constraint-functions in the formulation one can dynamically single out preferred values of these functions for the problem at hand. We apply the technique to fully three-dimensional simulations of a stationary black hole spacetime with excision of the singularity, considerably extending the lifetime of the simulations.Comment: 21 pages. To appear in PR

Bootstrap of kernel smoothing in nonlinear time series

Kernel smoothing in nonparametric autoregressive schemes offers a powerful tool in modelling time series. In this paper it is shown that the bootstrap can be used for estimating the distribution of kernel smoothers. This can be done by mimicking the stochastic nature of the whole process in the bootstrap resampling or by generating a simple regression model. Consistency of these bootstrap procedures will be shown

Testing outer boundary treatments for the Einstein equations

Various methods of treating outer boundaries in numerical relativity are compared using a simple test problem: a Schwarzschild black hole with an outgoing gravitational wave perturbation. Numerical solutions computed using different boundary treatments are compared to a `reference' numerical solution obtained by placing the outer boundary at a very large radius. For each boundary treatment, the full solutions including constraint violations and extracted gravitational waves are compared to those of the reference solution, thereby assessing the reflections caused by the artificial boundary. These tests use a first-order generalized harmonic formulation of the Einstein equations. Constraint-preserving boundary conditions for this system are reviewed, and an improved boundary condition on the gauge degrees of freedom is presented. Alternate boundary conditions evaluated here include freezing the incoming characteristic fields, Sommerfeld boundary conditions, and the constraint-preserving boundary conditions of Kreiss and Winicour. Rather different approaches to boundary treatments, such as sponge layers and spatial compactification, are also tested. Overall the best treatment found here combines boundary conditions that preserve the constraints, freeze the Newman-Penrose scalar Psi_0, and control gauge reflections.Comment: Modified to agree with version accepted for publication in Class. Quantum Gra

A Generalised Fractional Differencing Bootstrap for Long Memory Processes

A bootstrap methodology, first proposed in a restricted form by Kapetanios and Papailias (2011), suitable for use with stationary and nonstationary fractionally integrated time series is further developed in this paper. The resampling algorithm involves estimating the degree of fractional integration, applying the fractional differencing operator, resampling the resulting approximation to the underlying short memory series and, finally, cumulating to obtain a resample of the original fractionally integrated process. While a similar approach based on differencing has been independently proposed in the literature for stationary fractionally integrated processes using the sieve bootstrap by Poskitt, Grose and Martin (2015), we extend it to allow for general bootstrap schemes including blockwise bootstraps. Further, we show that it can also be validly used for nonstationary fractionally integrated processes. We establish asymptotic validity results for the general method and provide simulation evidence which highlights a number of favourable aspects of its finite sample performance, relative to other commonly used bootstrap methods

Implementation of higher-order absorbing boundary conditions for the Einstein equations

We present an implementation of absorbing boundary conditions for the Einstein equations based on the recent work of Buchman and Sarbach. In this paper, we assume that spacetime may be linearized about Minkowski space close to the outer boundary, which is taken to be a coordinate sphere. We reformulate the boundary conditions as conditions on the gauge-invariant Regge-Wheeler-Zerilli scalars. Higher-order radial derivatives are eliminated by rewriting the boundary conditions as a system of ODEs for a set of auxiliary variables intrinsic to the boundary. From these we construct boundary data for a set of well-posed constraint-preserving boundary conditions for the Einstein equations in a first-order generalized harmonic formulation. This construction has direct applications to outer boundary conditions in simulations of isolated systems (e.g., binary black holes) as well as to the problem of Cauchy-perturbative matching. As a test problem for our numerical implementation, we consider linearized multipolar gravitational waves in TT gauge, with angular momentum numbers l=2 (Teukolsky waves), 3 and 4. We demonstrate that the perfectly absorbing boundary condition B_L of order L=l yields no spurious reflections to linear order in perturbation theory. This is in contrast to the lower-order absorbing boundary conditions B_L with L<l, which include the widely used freezing-Psi_0 boundary condition that imposes the vanishing of the Newman-Penrose scalar Psi_0.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures. Minor clarifications. Final version to appear in Class. Quantum Grav