Colliding Black Holes: An Experimental Challenge for Theoretical Relativists

The imminent coming online of a network of interferometric gravitational wave detectors could herald a new era in astronomy. It also poses a challenge for theorists who are trying to model sources of gravitational waves. In this talk we will concentrate on collisions of black holes. Black holes are "made of spacetime" and therefore are expected to be sources that are quite clean to model. We will review the challenge that simulating a collision poses to theorists. We will discuss how cutting edge techniques from numerical analysis and the theory of partial differential equations are playing a crucial role for the successful numerical modelling of these gravitational wave sources.

The P/T Colloquium is
typically held each
Thursday, 3:45–5:00 PM.
Refreshments are served
at 3:15 PM.