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Edward Y.M. Wang (State Univ. of New York at Stony Brook), Alan C. Calder (National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), F. Douglas Swesty (Department of Astronomy and National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
The coalescence of compact binary systems is expected to be the main source for the observed gravitational radiation to be detected by gravitational wave observatories. A number of these observatories, including LIGO, are expected to become operational early in the next century. There are expectations that a few merging binary neutron star systems are to be observed by LIGO and her counterparts every year. The focus of our work is to model the coalescence of these systems so as to study the gravitational radiation emitted, and in particular, to predict the the waveforms expected to be observed from such astrophysical events. Past work has involved the evolution of binary neutron star systems in the Newtonian limit and the Newtonian plus (2.5 Post-Newtonian order) radiation reaction limit. Here we present preliminary results which are relevant to our goal of numerically modeling fully-relativistic compact binary mergers in 3D. We present a new numerical formalism for evolving such systems, a 3D relativistic spacetime and hydrodynamics code called ZEPHYR, with a description of the algorithms implemented, and a variety of testbed problems attempted. Our numerical formalism utilizes the recent Bona-Masso formulation of Einstein's equations as a hyperbolic system of coupled first-order differential equations. Future studies and descriptions of other astrophysical systems which can be modeled similarly will be discussed in addition.
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