A double-domain spectral method for black hole excision data

Abstract

In this paper a new double-domain spectral method to compute binary black hole excision initial data is presented. The method solves a system of elliptic partial differential equations in the exterior of two excised spheres. At the surface of these spheres, boundary conditions need to be imposed. As such, the method can be used to construct arbitrary initial data corresponding to binary black holes with specific boundary conditions at their apparent horizons. We give representative examples corresponding to initial data that fulfill the requirements of the quasi-stationary framework, which combines the thin sandwich formulation of the constraint equations with the isolated horizon conditions for black holes in quasi-equilibrium. For all examples considered, numerical solutions with extremely high accuracy were obtained with moderate computational effort. Moreover, the method proves to be applicable even when tending toward limiting cases such as large radius ratios for the black holes.