An efficient iterative method to reduce eccentricity in numerical-relativity simulations of compact binary inspiral
- Author(s)
- Michael Puerrer, Sascha Husa, Mark Hannam
- Abstract
We present a new iterative method to reduce eccentricity in black-hole-binary simulations. Given a good first estimate of low-eccentricity starting momenta, we evolve puncture initial data for ~4 orbits and construct improved initial parameters by comparing the inspiral with post-Newtonian calculations. Our method is the first to be applied directly to the gravitational-wave (GW) signal, rather than the orbital motion. The GW signal is in general less contaminated by gauge effects, which, in moving-puncture simulations, limit orbital-motion-based measurements of the eccentricity to an uncertainty of ?e~0.002, making it difficult to reduce the eccentricity below this value. Our new method can reach eccentricities below 10-3 in one or two iteration steps; we find that this is well below the requirements for GW astronomy in the advanced detector era. Our method can be readily adapted to any compact-binary simulation with GW emission, including black-hole-binary simulations which use alternative approaches and neutron-star-binary simulations. We also comment on the differences in eccentricity estimates based on the strain h and the Newman-Penrose scalar ?4.
- Organisation(s)
- Gravitational Physics
- External organisation(s)
- University of the Balearic Islands, Cardiff University
- Journal
- Physical Review D
- Volume
- 85
- No. of pages
- 26
- ISSN
- 1550-7998
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.85.124051
- Publication date
- 2012
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103036 Theoretical physics, 103028 Theory of relativity
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/an-efficient-iterative-method-to-reduce-eccentricity-in-numericalrelativity-simulations-of-compact-binary-inspiral(6d9ed647-50e5-494f-8d9d-b23fef008bcd).html