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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. D » Volume 54 » Issue 8
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Phys. Rev. D 54, 4849–4857 (1996)

Implementing an apparent-horizon finder in three dimensions

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Thomas W. Baumgarte*, Gregory B. Cook, and Mark A. Scheel
Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853

Stuart L. Shapiro†
Center for Astrophysics and Relativity, 326 Siena Drive, Ithaca, New York 14850

Saul A. Teukolsky‡
Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853

Received 6 June 1996; published in the issue dated 15 October 1996

Locating apparent horizons is not only important for a complete understanding of numerically generated spacetimes, but it may also be a crucial component of the technique for evolving black-hole spacetimes accurately. A scheme proposed by Libson, Massó, Seidel, and Suen, based on expanding the location of the apparent horizon in terms of symmetric trace-free tensors, seems very promising for use with three-dimensional numerical data sets. In this paper, we generalize this scheme and perform a number of code tests to fully calibrate its behavior in black-hole spacetimes similar to those we expect to encounter in solving the binary black-hole coalescence problem. An important aspect of the generalization is that we can compute the symmetric trace-free tensor expansion to any order. This enables us to determine how far we must carry the expansion to achieve results of a desired accuracy. To accomplish this generalization, we describe a new and very convenient set of recurrence relations which apply to symmetric trace-free tensors.

© 1996 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.54.4849
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.54.4849
PACS:
04.20.Cv, 02.60.Cb, 02.70.Rw, 04.25.Dm

*Present address: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801. Also at National Center for Superconductivity Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801.

†Present address: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801. Also at Department of Astronomy and National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801.

‡Also at the Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Cornell University.

 
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