Gauge conditions for binary black hole puncture data based on an approximate helical Killing vector

2003/06/04 by Wolfgang Tichy, Bernd Brügmann, Bernd Bruegmann +1 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.68.064008

published as Phys.Rev.D68:064008,2003 · 11 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables

arxiv created 2003/06/04 · openalex publication_date 2003/09/12 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We show that puncture data for quasicircular binary black hole orbits allow a special gauge choice that realizes some of the necessary conditions for the existence of an approximate helical Killing vector field. Introducing free parameters for the lapse at the punctures we can satisfy the condition that the Komar and Arnowitt-Deser-Misner mass agree at spatial infinity. Several other conditions for an approximate Killing vector are then automatically satisfied, and the 3-metric evolves on a time scale smaller than the orbital time scale. The time derivative of the extrinsic curvature, however, remains significant. Nevertheless, quasicircular puncture data are not as far from possessing a helical Killing vector as one might have expected.

Citations

• Binary black hole initial data for numerical general relativity based on post-Newtonian data
• Corotating and irrotational binary black holes in quasicircular orbits
• Gauge conditions for long-term numerical black hole evolutions without excision

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