Numerical Simulation of General Relativistic Stellar Collapse

Abstract

We present preliminar results and tests of a new general relativistic code to simulate the hydrodynamic collapse of a 21 solar masses star. We have assumed spherical symmetry and used the formalism of Misner and Sharp to construct a finite-difference scheme to solve the Einstein's equations, energy-momentum conservation equations and baryonic conservation equation. The code is similar to the one originally developed by May and White (1967). Here we discuss the capabilities of the code that make it well suited for numerical relativity on a personal computer and some caveats based on the experiments we have made with it.