A review of gravitational memory and BMS frame fixing in numerical relativity
Creators
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1.
California Institute of Technology
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2.
Cornell University
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3.
University of Mississippi
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4.
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Abstract
Gravitational memory effects and the BMS freedoms exhibited at future null infinity have recently been resolved and utilized in numerical relativity simulations. With this, gravitational wave models and our understanding of the fundamental nature of general relativity have been vastly improved. In this paper, we review the history and intuition behind memory effects and BMS symmetries, how they manifest in gravitational waves, and how controlling the infinite number of BMS freedoms of numerical relativity simulations can crucially improve the waveform models that are used by gravitational wave detectors. We reiterate the fact that, with memory effects and BMS symmetries, not only can these next-generation numerical waveforms be used to observe never-before-seen physics, but they can also be used to test GR and learn new astrophysical information about our Universe.
Copyright and License
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Acknowledgement
The authors thank Eanna Flanagan for informative conversations about the history of memory effects and Alexander Grant for intuition behind BMS balance laws. Computations for this work were performed with the Wheeler cluster at Caltech. This work was supported by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and NSF Grants Nos. PHY-2011968, PHY-2011961, PHY-2309211, PHY-2309231, OAC-2209656 at Caltech. The work of LCS was partially supported by NSF CAREER Award PHY-2047382 and a Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship.
Data Availability
No new data were created or analysed in this study.
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Mitman_2024_Class._Quantum_Grav._41_223001.pdf
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Additional details
Related works
- Is new version of
- Discussion Paper: arXiv:2405.08868 (arXiv)
Funding
- Sherman Fairchild Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- PHY-2011968
- National Science Foundation
- PHY-2011961
- National Science Foundation
- PHY-2309211
- National Science Foundation
- PHY-2309231
- National Science Foundation
- OAC-2209656
- National Science Foundation
- PHY-2047382
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Dates
- Submitted
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2024-05-14
- Accepted
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2024-10-01
- Available
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2024-10-22Published online