Numerical Relativity

The aim of Numerical Relativity is to solve Einstein's equations by numerical means.

This approach allows to survey the unknown solution space of the Einstein equations.

Perhaps the main current focus is to provide gravitational waveform templates for the upcoming laser interferometers.

Challenging problems:

    Mathematical difficulties (PDEs with hundreds of terms, mixed hyperbolic and elliptic character, stability, gauge conditions, etc).
    Enormous computational resources needed in 3D.

Experience in different formulations of the relativistic field equations:

    3+1 formulation:

      Papadopoulos, Font
      Phys. Rev. D, 59, 044014 (1999)

      Brandt, Font, Ibanez, Masso, Seidel
      Comp. Phys. Comm., 124, 169 (2000)

      Font, Miller, Suen, Tobias
      Phys. Rev. D, 61, 044011 (2000)

      Alcubierre et al
      Phys. Rev. D, 62, 044034 (2000)

      Font et al
      Phys. Rev. D, 65, 084024 (2002)

      Baiotti et al
      Phys. Rev. D, submitted (2004)

    Characteristic formulation:

      Papadopoulos, Font
      Phys. Rev. D, 61, 024015 (2000)

      Papadopoulos, Font
      Phys. Rev. D, 63, 044016 (2001)

      Linke, Font, Janka, Müller, Papadopoulos
      Astron. Astrophys. 376, 568 (2001)

      Siebel, Font, Papadopoulos
      Phys. Rev. D, 65, 024021 (2002)

      Siebel, Font, Müller, Papadopoulos
      Phys. Rev. D, 65, 064038 (2002)

      Siebel, Font, Müller, Papadopoulos
      Phys. Rev. D, 67, 124018 (2003)

    Conformally-flat metric (Isenberg-Wilson):

      Dimmelmeier, Font, Müller
      Astrophys. J. Lett. 560, L163-L166 (2001)

      Dimmelmeier, Font, Müller
      Class. Quantum Grav. 19, 1291-1296 (2002)

      Dimmelmeier, Font, Müller
      Astron. Astrophys. 388, 917-935 (2002)

      Dimmelmeier, Font, Müller
      Astron. Astrophys. 393, 523-542 (2002)

Click here for recent results on 3D simulations performed with the whisky code showing the formation of Kerr black holes as a result of the gravitational collapse of rotating relativistic stars.

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