Initial data for superposed rotating black holes

Abstract

The standard approach to initial data for both analytic and numerical computations of black hole collisions has been to use conformally-flat initial geometry. Among other advantages, this choice allows the simple superposition of holes with arbitrary mass, location and spin. The conformally flat restriction, however, is inappropriate to the study of Kerr holes, for which the standard constant-time slice is not conformally flat. Here we point out that for axisymmetric arrangements of rotating holes, a nonconformally flat form of the 3-geometry can be chosen which allows fairly simple superposition of Kerr holes with arbitrary mass and spin. We present initial data solutions representing locally Kerr holes at large separation, and representing rotating holes close enough so that outside a common horizon the spacetime geometry is a perturbation of a single Kerr hole.