Black Hole Spacetimes: Testing Numerical Relativity

In Frontiers in Numerical Relativity, 57-73, 1989, ed. C. Evans, L. Finn, and D. Hobill (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge), with D. Bernstein and D. Hobill. (1989).

Abstract

Spherically symmetric black hole spacetimes are studied numerically using the standard 3 +1 decomposition of the Einstein equations. Different finite difference methods are employed and the results are compared with the known analytic behavior of the Schwarzschild solution. A discussion of coordinate and gauge conditions is included and it is demonstrated that, given the appropriate combinations of finite difference methods and gauge choices, free evolution an accurately propagated the constraint equations.