Reducing orbital eccentricity in binary black hole simulations

摘要: Binary black hole simulations starting from quasi-circular (i.e., zero radial velocity) initial data have orbits with small but nonzero orbital eccentricities. In this paper, the quasi-equilibrium initial-data method is extended to allow velocities be specified in binary data. New low-eccentricity are obtained by adjusting frequency and minimize eccentricity, resulting (~5 orbit) evolutions compared those of Evolutions clearly show eccentric orbits, eccentricity that decays over time. The precise decay rate depends on definition eccentricity; if defined terms variations frequency, agrees well prediction Peters (1964 Phys. Rev. 136 1224–32). gravitational waveforms, which contain ~8 cycles dominant l = m 2 mode, largely unaffected overlap between mode evolution same about 0.99.