Numerical evolution of matter in dynamical axisymmetric black hole spacetimes. I: Methods and tests (Q1971525)

The authors present a new numerical code to study the evolution of self-gravitating matter in black hole axisymmetric space-times. The code is based on the ADM formulation of the Einstein equations as an initial value problem. The code contains routines to extract various gravitational radiation modes and to track the motion of the apparent and event horizons. The authors present convergence tests of the code and it was tested in several physically interesting cases including accretion of matter onto a black hole, the implosion of dust shells and the evolution of matter in a rotating black hole space-time.