Seminar

General relativistic simulations of astrophysical phenomena is a computationally challenging task as the relevant equations are often nonlinear partial differential equations that couple vastly different spatial and temporal-scales. Our algorithms for tackling these problems have essentially remained unchanged for the past several decades. In this talk, I will discuss the current state of art in numerical relativity, and introduce a novel relativistic astrophysics code, SpECTRE, that combines the quasilocality of discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods with task-based parallelism. The robustness of the DG method allows for the use of high-resolution shock capturing methods in regions where (relativistic) shocks are found, while exploiting high-order accuracy in smooth regions. Using the SpECTRE numerical-relativity code, I will also present the first simulations of a binary black hole inspiral, merger, and ringdown using discontinuous Galerkin methods. The open-source nature of SpECTRE means this is the first time a spectral-type method for simulating binary black hole evolutions is available to the entire numerical-relativity community.