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Binary Black Hole Grand Challenge

Black hole collisions have 2 major interest to numerical relativist

Black hole collisions should be strong generators of gravitational radiation. LIGO(Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory) should be able to detect this radiation by the end of the century.
This is an extremely difficult problem for numerical relativist. We will make use of the most powerful computers and the sophistication of AMR. It should provide us with the first ``general'' solution of Einstein Equations.

Groups involved

Physics
- Austin, Cornell, Illinois, North Carolina, Northwestern, Penn State, Pittsburgh,
Computer Science
- Austin, Illinois Syracuse

The picture below depicts the event horizon from the head-on collision of two black holes. The vertical axis is the time axis and the yellow arrows denote the directions of the spacial coordinates. The black holes were formed from the collapse of pressureless dust.

Project Overview

The Binary Black Hole Grand Challenge project is a collaboration between Numerical Relativists and Computer Scientists at eight institutions. The goal of this grand challenge is to solve the problem of the 3D spiraling coalescence of two black holes. The overall project is divided into several components each of which is worked on by each institution or a group of institutions. Each of these components deals with various aspects of the project. The following is a breakdown:

Computer Science Products

Interface Definition
Scientist Tools
Data Structures
Parallel Implementations
Adaptive Multilevel Support
Template Code Writer
Descriptor Language
File Transfer Protocols

Computational Science (Relativity) Products

Initial Data Codes
2-D Spacelike Codes
2-D Null Codes
3-D Spacelike Codes
3-D Null Codes
Spacelike-Null interface
Adaptive Multilevel 3-D Codes

Organizational Products

MOU
E-mail
Phone
Meetings
Advisory Committee
Cognizant Scientists
Software Librarian
Newsletter
Net Phone
Net Video
Mosaic

Physics Support

Wave Extraction
Perturbation Theory
Comparison to PPN Data.
Boundary Layers
High Accuracy Wave Prediction

The following links will provide more details and related information