Gravity seminar - Sam Dolan [UNUSUAL DAY AND TIME] Seminar

Abstract: Black hole perturbation theory is a key tool for modelling compact-binary inspirals, and their associated gravitational wave signatures, particularly in the case where the ratio of the masses of the two bodies is far from unity. For many applications, it is advantageous to work in the Lorenz gauge, so that the metric perturbation is governed by a tensor wave equation of a manifestly hyperbolic form (i.e. hyperbolic PDEs). In this talk, I will describe a new separation-of-variables method for obtaining the metric perturbations of Kerr spacetime, that is, for a rotating black hole. In this scheme, the metric perturbation is constructed in the frequency domain from scalar variables that satisfy decoupled *ordinary* differential equations. For the case of a particle moving on a circular equatorial orbit of Kerr spacetime, I will compare the results of the new method with existing numerical results from a 2+1D time-domain code developed in Southampton. This talk is based on work with Barry Wardell, Chris Kavanagh and Leanne Durkan.