Conservative discretization of the Einstein-Dirac equations in spherically symmetric spacetime

Abstract

In computational relativity, critical behaviour near the black hole threshold has been studied numerically for several models in the last decade. In this paper we present a spatial Galerkin method, suitable for finding numerical solutions of the Einstein-Dirac equations in spherically symmetric spacetime (in polar/areal coordinates). The method features exact conservation of the total electric charge and allows for a spatial mesh adaption based on physical arclength. Numerical experiments confirm excellent robustness and convergence properties of our approach. Hence, this new algorithm is well suited for studying critical behaviour.