Luisa Buchman

Department of Astronomy
PO Box 351580
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
(206) 543-9095
email: lbuchman
Please add "@astro.washington.edu" to the end of the email address.

To simulate on a computer the collision of two spinning black holes in 3D leads to a Grand Challenge currently facing the scientific community. Groups around the world are tackling this Grand Challenge, but the problem is far from being solved because researchers cannot attain long-time stable evolution in their numerical simulations. Unanswered questions that need to be studied and understood before a long-term stable numerical evolution can be achieved are the following:

  • What is the best form in which to cast the Einstein equations to numerically solve the colliding black hole problem?

  • How does one handle the coordinate and metric pathologies that arise in evolving a spacetime that undergoes extreme warping?

  • What are the best ways to implement the boundary conditions at the apparent horizon of the black hole and at the outer edge of the grid of computation?

  • What are the best numerical methods to use?

    These questions are being thoroughly studied in my PhD. thesis research. It is hoped that the insights gained in researching the above questions will contribute to the Grand Challenge goal of attaining a stable code in the full 3D calculation. This in turn would facilitate successful interpretation of gravitational wave signatures from detectors such as LIGO and LISA.

    This work is being performed under the guidance of J. M. Bardeen in the Physics department at the University of Washington, and in collaboration with D. S. Bale and R. J. LeVeque in the Applied Mathematics department.