Hyperbolic slicings of spacetime: singularity avoidance and gauge shocks

Abstract

I study the Bona-Masso family of hyperbolic slicing conditions, considering in particular its properties when approaching two different types of singularities: focusing singularities and gauge shocks. For focusing singularities, I extend the original analysis of Bona et. al and show that both marginal and strong singularity avoidance can be obtained for certain types of behavior of the slicing condition as the lapse approaches zero. For the case of gauge shocks, I re-derive a condition found previously that eliminates them. Unfortunately, such a condition limits considerably the type of slicings allowed. However, useful slicing conditions can still be found if one asks for this condition to be satisfied only approximately. Such less restrictive conditions include a particular member of the 1+log family, which in the past has been found empirically to be extremely robust for both Brill wave and black hole simulations.