Frame-Dragging Vortexes and Tidal Tendexes Attached to Colliding Black Holes: Visualizing the Curvature of Spacetime

Owen, Robert and Brink, Jeandrew and Chen, Yanbei and Kaplan, Jeffrey D. and Lovelace, Geoffrey and Matthews, Keith D. and Nichols, David A. and Scheel, Mark A. and Zhang, Fan and Zimmerman, Aaron and Thorne, Kip S. (2011) Frame-Dragging Vortexes and Tidal Tendexes Attached to Colliding Black Holes: Visualizing the Curvature of Spacetime. Physical Review Letters, 106 (15). Art. No. 151101. ISSN 0031-9007. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20110505-111533214

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Abstract

When one splits spacetime into space plus time, the spacetime curvature (Weyl tensor) gets split into an "electric" part ε_(jk) that describes tidal gravity and a "magnetic" part B_(jk) that describes differential dragging of inertial frames. We introduce tools for visualizing B_(jk) (frame-drag vortex lines, their vorticity, and vortexes) and ε_(jk) (tidal tendex lines, their tendicity, and tendexes) and also visualizations of a black-hole horizon's (scalar) vorticity and tendicity. We use these tools to elucidate the nonlinear dynamics of curved spacetime in merging black-hole binaries.

Item Type:

Article

Related URLs:

URL	URL Type	Description
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.151101	DOI	UNSPECIFIED
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v106/i15/e151101	Publisher	UNSPECIFIED

ORCID:

Author	ORCID
Chen, Yanbei	0000-0002-9730-9463
Lovelace, Geoffrey	0000-0002-7084-1070

Additional Information:

© 2011 American Physical Society. Received 21 December 2010; published 11 April 2011. We thank Larry Kidder and Saul Teukolsky for helpful discussions. Our simulations have been performed by using the Spectral Einstein Code (SpEC) [19]. This research was supported by NSF Grants No. PHY-0601459, No. PHY-0653653, No. PHY-0960291, No. PHY- 0969111, and No. PHY-1005426 and CAREER Grant No. PHY-0956189, by NASA Grants No. NNX09AF97G and No. NNX09AF96G, and by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, the Brinson Foundation, and the David and Barbara Groce fund.

Group:

TAPIR

Funders:

Funding Agency	Grant Number
NSF	PHY-0601459
NSF	PHY-0653653
NSF	PHY-0960291
NSF	PHY-0969111
NSF	PHY-1005426
NASA	PHY-0956189
NASA	NNX09AF97G
NASA	NNX09AF96G
Sherman Fairchild Foundation	UNSPECIFIED
Brinson Foundation	UNSPECIFIED
David and Barbara Groce Fund	UNSPECIFIED

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Classification Code:

PACS: 04.25.dg, 04.25.Nx, 04.30.-w

Record Number:

CaltechAUTHORS:20110505-111533214

Persistent URL:

https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20110505-111533214

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No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.

ID Code:

23559

Collection:

CaltechAUTHORS

Deposited By:

Tony Diaz

Deposited On:

05 May 2011 21:37

Last Modified:

09 Mar 2020 13:19

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