Numerical evolution of multiple black holes with accurate initial data

Abstract

We present numerical evolutions of three equal-mass black holes using the moving puncture approach. We calculate puncture initial data for three black holes solving the constraint equations by means of a high-order multigrid elliptic solver. Using these initial data, we show the results for three black hole evolutions with sixth-order waveform convergence. We compare results obtained with the BAM and AMSS-NCKU codes with previous results. The approximate analytic solution to the Hamiltonian constraint used in previous simulations of three black holes leads to different dynamics and waveforms. We present some numerical experiments showing the evolution of four black holes and the resulting gravitational waveform.