榴莲视频

Abstract

The upcoming European gravitational wave detectors LISA and the Einstein Telescope are bound to revolutionize our understanding of black holes across the Universe, but to make sense of their data they require extremely accurate numerical simulations of merging black holes and their gravitational waves. This is the realm of numerical relativity and requires solving Einstein鈥檚 equations of general relativity to extreme precision on large supercomputers. In this colloquium, I will give an overview of the state-of-the-art in numerical relativity, recent advances in simulating merging binary black holes with highly efficient spectral finite-element methods, and the challenges that lie ahead to reach the requirements for the era of next-generation gravitational-wave astronomy.