Project: 3D Black Holes
Project: 3D Black Holes We have developed a new 3D numerical code designed to solve the Einstein equations for general vacuum spacetimes. This code is based on the standard 3+1 approach using Cartesian coordinates. We have successfully evolved the first 3D black holes spacetimes. With current resolutions, limited by computer memory sizes, we show that with certain lapse conditions we can evolve a single black hole to about time=50M, where M is the black hole mass. We can also evolve the Misner two black hole initial data set to approximately 30M, depending on the mu value. From these spacetimes we can extract gravitational radiation, as measured by the Zerilli function and the Newman-Penrose quantities.
Most of our results for the single black hole are described in the preprint of our paper Three dimensional numerical relativity: the evolution of black holes, which was published in Phys. Rev. D.The following movies illustrate metric functions as a function of time for a spherical black hole evolved with an algebraic slicing condition. The first movie is of the radial metric function, which has been reconstructed from the Cartesian metric functions which are actually evolved. The second movie is of the xx-component of the metric in the z=0 plane.
QT (1118K) narration
We are currently working to solve the axisymmetric, non-rotating, two black hole collision problem in 3D. A subroutine which performs gauge-invariant wave extraction has been built and is being tested. We have also written a routine to compute the Newman-Penrose quantities.
QT (1140K) narration