Simulating binary black hole mergers using discontinuous Galerkin methods
Abstract Binary black holes are the most abundant source of gravitational-wave observations. Gravitational-wave observatories in the next decade will require tremendous increases in the accuracy of numerical waveforms modeling binary black holes, compared to today’s state of the art. One approach to achieving the required accuracy is using spectral-type methods that scale to many processors. Using the SpECTRE numerical-relativity (NR) code, we present the first simulations of a binary black hole inspiral, merger, and ringdown using discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods. The efficiency of DG methods allows us to evolve the binary through ∼ 18 orbits at reasonable computational cost. We then use SpECTRE ’s Cauchy Characteristic Evolution (CCE) code to extract the gravitational waves at future null infinity. The open-source nature of SpECTRE means this is the first time a spectral-type method for simulating binary black hole evolutions is available to the entire NR community.
Authors
- Michael Boyle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5075-5116)
- Torres Aguilar
- Alexandra Lorandi Macedo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7671-6377)
- Kyle C. Nelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2426-8768)
- William Throwe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5059-4378)
- Jordan Moxon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9891-8677)
- Guillermo Lara (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9461-6292)
- E. O’Shea (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0230-9533)
- Matthew Giesler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2300-893X)
- Keefe Mitman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0276-3856)
- Harald Pfeiffer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9288-519X)
- P. Kumar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5523-4603)
- Sarah Habib (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4725-4978)
- Nils L. Vu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5767-3949)
- Nils Deppe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4557-4115)
- M. S. Bonilla (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4502-528X)
- Geoffrey Lovelace (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7084-1070)
- Nikolas A. Wittek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8575-5450)
- D. A. Melchor (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7854-1953)
- Mark Scheel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6656-9134)
- Marlo Morales (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0593-4318)
- Saul A. Teukolsky (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9765-4526)
- A. Ceja (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1681-7299)
- Alexander Carpenter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9183-8006)
- Larry Kidder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5392-7342)
- Kristina Pannone
- Azer Afram
- Iago B. Mendes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9845-8448)
- Daniel Tellez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-7784-2528)
- Jennifer Hincapié Sánchez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4307-6964)
- Ken Z. Jones (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-1034-0498)
Institutions
- Northwestern University (US)
- Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (IN)
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- California State University, Fullerton (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (IN)
- Instituto de Física Teórica (ES)
- Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (DE)
- Oberlin College (US)
- Washington State University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Classical and Quantum Gravity
- Published
- 2024-12-13
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6382/ad9f19
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.32
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Sherman Fairchild Foundation
- Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India