New Directions in Numerical Relativity

An Isaac Newton Institute Satellite Workshop, held at the University of Southampton, 18-19 August 2005

Announcement

Numerical relativity is still on the road towards reliable simulations of astrophysical scenarios such as binary black hole mergers, binary neutron star mergers, and supernova core collapse, and the mathematically intriguing problem of critical collapse of rotating systems. Key problems are achieving long-term stability of evolutions. In the last few years significant progress has been made in clarifying the underlying mathematical (continuum) problem, and various efforts are under way to transfer these insights to the numerical (discretised) problem. The meeting will focus on two areas: mathematical aspect of the continuum and discrete problems (well-posedness, gauge, boundary conditions, discretisation methods), and simulations at the edge of what is currently possible.

Report

The meeting was organsised by Carsten Gundlach (Southampton) and Helmut Friedrich (AEI Golm) as a satellite meeting of the Newton Institute programme Global problems in Mathematical Relativity. It was attended by 46 researchers, including 18 Newton Institute programme members, and 7 participants from Southampton. All participants were sponsored by one of the following: the European Union (grant held by the organisers of the NI programme), the Newton Institute, the London Mathematical Society, and the Institute of Physics. Most participants stayed in a hall of residence on campus, and all meals were taken together at the hall or on campus. The programme consisted of 12 invited 45 minute plenary talks, with 15 minutes for discussion. The time for discussion was fully used, and further discussions took place over refreshment breaks and meals. List of participant names and emails.

Alphabetical list of talks

Gioel Calabrese (U Southampton)	Finite difference approximations of first order in time, second order in space hyperbolic systems	abstract, pdf of slides
Matthew Choptuik (UBC Vancouver	Recent developments in black hole critical phenomena	abstract, pdf of slides
Joerg Frauendiener (U Tuebingen)	Evolutions with the conformal field equations	abstract, pdf of slides
John Friedmann (UW Milwaukee)	Waveless and helically symmetric approaches neutron star binaries	abstract, pdf of slides
David Garfinkle (Oakland U)	Numerical simulations of gravitational singularities	abstract, pdf of slides
Ian Hawke (U Southampton)	Gravitational waves from stellar collapse simulations	abstract, pdf of slides
Heinz-Otto Kreiss (NADA Stockholm)	Boundary conditions for difference approximations of second order hyperbolic differential equations in general domains	abstract, pdf of slides
Luis Lehner (LSU Baton Rouge)	Next steps in the simulation of Einstein equations	abstract, pdf of slides
Frans Pretorius (Caltech)	Simulations of binary black hole spacetimes	abstract, pdf of slides (Please ask Frans directly for the animations)
Oscar Reula (U Cordoba)	On touching grids and higher order methods on space-times with non-trivial topology	abstract, pdf of slides
Olivier Sarbach (Caltech)	A model problem for the initial-boundary value formulation of Einstein's field equations	abstract, pdf of slides
John Stewart (U Cambridge)	Axisymmetry and hyperbolicity	abstract, pdf of slides