Einstein 's gravitational theory predicts that accelerated masses produce gravitational waves, analogous to the way charges produce electromagnetic waves. Large scale gravitational wave detectors, sensitive enough to observe waves from distant galaxies, are coming into operation. The complexity of Einstein's equations requires computer simulations to predict the gravitational waves produced by realistic astrophysical sources such as compact binary systems a black hole and neutron stars.
The major goal of this project is to advance our knowledge in obtaining numerical implementations of Einstein equations and applying these to physically relevant scenarios. The project will explore unresolved issues for approaches using both space-like and light-like initial data especially those which have prevented robust implementations. The first step will be to develop a robust simulation capable of dealing with a generic single black hole interacting with scalar fields. This will serve as test cases for binary black hole systems and black hole-neutron star systems to be implemented subsequently.
