Numerical construction of static and stationary black holes (Q2906683)

This paper is a very well-written review describing numerical methods for constructing static and stationary black hole spacetimes, with emphasis on spacetime dimension larger than four.NEWLINENEWLINESuch higher dimensional black holes have features which make their dynamical construction a difficult problem. Many of them are likely to be unstable, black hole uniqueness breaks down in higher dimensions, and the cosmic censorship does not hold. However, stationary black holes can be constructed numerically without dynamical formation by solving directly the vacuum Einstein equations.NEWLINENEWLINEThe main approach is to solve the vacuum Einstein equations in harmonic form in the presence of a timelike Killing vector field. These equations have elliptic character, but gauge invariance implies lack of ellipticity and must therefore be broken before a numerical algorithm can be applied. The author discusses an elegant way to break gauge invariance while maintaining covariance through the generalized harmonic formulation. The system of partial differential equations must be completed with appropriate boundary conditions for the black hole horizon and the asymptotic region, which are also discussed in detail.NEWLINENEWLINEThe author uses standard numerical methods for solving the elliptic systems, namely relaxation and Newton-Raphson methods. These methods are amended to handle the particular difficulties in the numerical construction of higher dimensional stationary black holes. I especially enjoyed reading about the relation between the relaxation method and the Ricci flow, and also how unstable modes that correspond to fixed points of the Ricci flow can be found by a suitable combination of relaxation and Newton-Raphson methods. An illustrative example code is made publicly available.NEWLINENEWLINEThe review is well structured. After an introductory section, two chapters organize the rich list of ideas. First, the essential method is presented on static black holes. Second, technical difficulties related to stationary spacetimes (such as the presence of ergoregions) are discussed.NEWLINENEWLINEThis review should be useful for anyone working on the numerical construction of stationary black holes. Researchers in gravitation and general relativity will find the review interesting.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 1241.83007].