Post-Newtonian quasicircular initial orbits for numerical relativity

DOI10.1088/1361-6382/AA7929zbMATH Open1373.83057arXiv1702.00872OpenAlexW3100875815MaRDI QIDQ4592654FDOQ4592654

Authors: James Healy, Carlos O. Lousto, Hiroyuki Nakano, Yosef Zlochower 

Publication date: 7 November 2017

Published in: Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We use post-Newtonian (PN) approximations to determine the initial orbital and spin parameters of black hole binaries that lead to low-eccentricity inspirals when evolved with numerical relativity techniques. In particular, we seek initial configurations that lead to very small eccentricities at small separations, as is expected for astrophysical systems. We consider three cases: (i) quasicircular orbits with no radial velocity, (ii) quasicircular orbits with an initial radial velocity determined by radiation reaction, and (iii) parameters obtained form evolution of the PN equations of motion from much larger separations. We study seven cases of spinning, nonprecessing, unequal mass binaries. We then use several definitions of the eccentricity, based on orbital separations and waveform phase and amplitude, and find that using the complete 3PN Hamiltonian for quasicircular orbits to obtain the tangential orbital momentum, and using the highest-known-order radiation reaction expressions to obtain the radial momentum, leads to the lowest eccentricity. The accuracy of this method even exceeds that of inspiral data based on 3PN and 4PN evolutions.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.00872

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zbMATH Keywords

post-Newtoniannumerical evolutionsbinary black hole evolutionsquasicircular initial orbits

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Equations of motion in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C10) Galactic and stellar dynamics (85A05) Approximation procedures, weak fields in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C25) Black holes (83C57) Computational methods for problems pertaining to relativity and gravitational theory (83-08)

Cites Work

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Cited In (5)

• Reducing orbital eccentricity in binary black hole simulations
• Corrigendum: Post-Newtonian quasicircular initial orbits for numerical relativity (2017 Class. Quantum Grav. 34 145011)
• Radiation from low-momentum zoom-whirl orbits
• Quasi-Keplerian motion under the generally parameterized post-Newtonian force
• Initial data and eccentricity reduction toolkit for binary black hole numerical relativity waveforms

Uses Software

• Cactus

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