Radiation from a D-dimensional collision of shock waves: numerical methods

Abstract

We present a pedagogical introduction to the problem of evolving a head on collision of two Aichelburg-Sexl gravitational shock waves in D-dimensions, using perturbative techniques. We follow a constructive approach with examples, going in some detail through: the set up of the exact initial conditions and their properties; perturbative methods in flat space-time with Green function solutions; and numerical strategies to evaluate the integral solutions. We also discuss, briefly, radiation extraction methods adapted to this problem, together with some of the results for this system.

Comments: Lecture notes from the NRHEP spring school held at IST-Lisbon, March 2013. Extra material and notebooks available online at http://blackholes.ist.utl.pt/nrhep2/ To be published by IJMPA (V. Cardoso, L. Gualtieri, C. Herdeiro and U. Sperhake, Eds., 2013)