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Title: Characteristic initial data for a star orbiting a black hole

Abstract

We take further steps in the development of the characteristic approach to enable handling the physical problem of a compact self-gravitating object, such as a neutron star, in close orbit around a black hole. We examine different options for setting the initial data for this problem and, in order to shed light on their physical relevance, we carry out short time evolution of this data. To this end we express the matter part of the characteristic gravity code so that the hydrodynamics are in conservation form. The resulting gravity plus matter relativity code provides a starting point for more refined future efforts at longer term evolution. In the present work we find that, independently of the details of the initial gravitational data, the system quickly flushes out spurious gravitational radiation and relaxes to a quasiequilibrium state with an approximate helical symmetry corresponding to the circular orbit of the star.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5]
  1. Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of South Africa, P.O. Box 392, Pretoria 0003 (South Africa)
  2. Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 (United States)
  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70810 (United States)
  4. School of Information Systems and Technology, University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa)
  5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260 (United States)
Publication Date:
OSTI Identifier:
20711124
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
Physical Review. D, Particles Fields
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 72; Journal Issue: 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.72.024002; (c) 2005 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Journal ID: ISSN 0556-2821
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; BINARY STARS; BLACK HOLES; COSMOLOGY; GENERAL RELATIVITY THEORY; GRAVITATION; GRAVITATIONAL RADIATION; GRAVITATIONAL WAVES; HYDRODYNAMICS; NEUTRON STARS; SYMMETRY

Citation Formats

Bishop, Nigel T, Gomez, Roberto, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, Lehner, Luis, Maharaj, Manoj, Winicour, Jeffrey, and Albert Einstein Institute, Max Planck Gesellschaft, Am Muehlenberg 1, D-14476 Golm. Characteristic initial data for a star orbiting a black hole. United States: N. p., 2005. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.72.024002.
Bishop, Nigel T, Gomez, Roberto, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, Lehner, Luis, Maharaj, Manoj, Winicour, Jeffrey, & Albert Einstein Institute, Max Planck Gesellschaft, Am Muehlenberg 1, D-14476 Golm. Characteristic initial data for a star orbiting a black hole. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.72.024002
Bishop, Nigel T, Gomez, Roberto, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, Lehner, Luis, Maharaj, Manoj, Winicour, Jeffrey, and Albert Einstein Institute, Max Planck Gesellschaft, Am Muehlenberg 1, D-14476 Golm. 2005. "Characteristic initial data for a star orbiting a black hole". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.72.024002.
@article{osti_20711124,
title = {Characteristic initial data for a star orbiting a black hole},
author = {Bishop, Nigel T and Gomez, Roberto and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260 and Lehner, Luis and Maharaj, Manoj and Winicour, Jeffrey and Albert Einstein Institute, Max Planck Gesellschaft, Am Muehlenberg 1, D-14476 Golm},
abstractNote = {We take further steps in the development of the characteristic approach to enable handling the physical problem of a compact self-gravitating object, such as a neutron star, in close orbit around a black hole. We examine different options for setting the initial data for this problem and, in order to shed light on their physical relevance, we carry out short time evolution of this data. To this end we express the matter part of the characteristic gravity code so that the hydrodynamics are in conservation form. The resulting gravity plus matter relativity code provides a starting point for more refined future efforts at longer term evolution. In the present work we find that, independently of the details of the initial gravitational data, the system quickly flushes out spurious gravitational radiation and relaxes to a quasiequilibrium state with an approximate helical symmetry corresponding to the circular orbit of the star.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevD.72.024002},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/20711124}, journal = {Physical Review. D, Particles Fields},
issn = {0556-2821},
number = 2,
volume = 72,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2005},
month = {Fri Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2005}
}