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General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc, Astrophysics, High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, astro-ph.HE
Abstract:
Despite the recent rapid progress in numerical relativity, a convergence
order less than the second has so far plagued codes solving the Einstein-Euler
system of equations. We report simulations of the inspiral of binary neutron
stars in quasi-circular orbits computed with a new code employing high-order,
high-resolution shock-capturing, finite-differencing schemes that, for the
first time, go beyond the second-order barrier. In particular, without any
tuning or alignment, we measure a convergence order above three both in the
phase and in the amplitude of the gravitational waves. Because the new code is
able to calculate waveforms with very small phase errors already at modest
resolutions, we are able to obtain accurate estimates of tidal effects in the
inspiral that are essentially free from the large numerical viscosity typical
of lower-order methods, and even for the challenging large compactness and
small-deformability binary considered here. We find a remarkable agreement
between our Richardson-extrapolated waveform and the one from the tidally
corrected post-Newtonian (PN) Taylor-T4 model, with a de-phasing smaller than
0.2 radians during the seven orbits of the inspiral and up to the contact
point. Because our results can be used reliably to assess the validity of the
PN or other approximations at frequencies significantly larger than those
considered so far in the literature, they seem to exclude at these
compactnesses significant tidal amplifications from
next-to-next-to-leading--order terms in the PN expansion.
