Computational General Relativistic Astrophysics : The Neutron Star Grand Challenge Project

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General Relativistic Astrophysics-astrophysics that involves strong and dynamical gravitational fields requiring the full Einstein equations for its understanding-is becoming an exciting area of research, due to the large amount of data in high energy astronomy, and to the great promise of gravitational wave astronomy. In particular, Computational General Relativistic Astrophysics, with the recent stunning increases in computer power, may hold the key to the understanding of many observations in high energy astronomy and gravitational wave astronomy. The NASA Neutron Star Grand Challenge Project aims at developing a computational infrastructure for general relativistic astrophysics based on state-of the-art massively parallel computational technology. The numerical simulation of coalescing neutron stars was chosen as the driving application of the code development effort. In this paper we review the present status of the project. The 3D code that contains the Einstein equations and the relativistic hydrodynamic equations has recently passed the final milestone requirement of the NASA project and has been released to the community with documentation. We propose a set of testing criteria for the validation of general relativistic hydrodynamic codes, and discuss some preliminary results obtained with the code on the head-on collisions of neutron stars.
2000-01-31