Visualizing Binary Black Hole Mergers with SpECTRE*

Numerical-relativity models of merging black holes are necessary for predicting the gravitational waves that they emit and for understanding the behavior of the strongly warped spacetime as the holes merge. Visualizations are important tools for understanding the output of simulations. In this talk, I will present new visualizations of merging black holes using SpECTRE, an open-source, next-generation numerical-relativity code. In particular, I will show the methods used to visualize the curvature of space (characterized by the three-dimensional Ricci scalar), the lapse (the rate of flow of time),  and the emitted gravitational waves using the Newman-Penrose scalar Ψ⁴. I will also discuss progress towards extracting Ψ⁴ on a Strahlkorper surface which will allow us to compare gravitational waveforms with the output of other numerical-relativity codes and with SpECTRE’s Cauchy Characteristic Evolution (CCE) system.