Session Q20 - Gravitational Radiation - Theory and Numerical Relativity.
MIXED session, Monday afternoon, May 01
102A, LBCC
The computational simulation of binary black hole mergers is a problem of great interest in general relativity. Such mergers are expected to be strong astrophysical sources of gravitational radiation measurable by gravitational wave detectors currently under construction around the world. Their accurate simulation via numerical solutions to the Einstein field equations will provide an understanding of the gravitational radiation that ensue from such events as well as provide a computational laboratory in which to study the physics of two body problems such as these in general relativity. We present recent results from numerical simulations of binary black hole mergers using black hole excision techniques. We discuss the initial data, excision techniques and algorithms and results from such a simulation. The eventual goal of this work is to be capable of long term evolutions of the merger phase through the ringdown phase.