An efficient iterative method to reduce eccentricity in numerical-relativity simulations of compact binary inspiral

Pürrer, Michael, Husa, Sascha and Hannam, Mark ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5571-325X 2012. An efficient iterative method to reduce eccentricity in numerical-relativity simulations of compact binary inspiral. Physical Review D 85 (12) , pp. 124051-124076. 10.1103/PhysRevD.85.124051

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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 Δe∼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 Ψ4.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Advanced Research Computing @ Cardiff (ARCCA) Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Publisher:	American Physical Society
ISSN:	1550-7998
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	23 May 2023 16:51
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/32002

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