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Abstract

Binary black holes are the most abundant source of gravitational-wave
observations. Gravitational-wave observatories in the next decade will require
tremendous increases in the accuracy of numerical waveforms modeling binary
black holes, compared to today's state of the art. One approach to achieving
the required accuracy is using spectral-type methods that scale to many
processors. Using the SpECTRE numerical-relativity code, we present the first
simulations of a binary black hole inspiral, merger, and ringdown using
discontinuous Galerkin methods. The efficiency of discontinuous Galerkin
methods allows us to evolve the binary through ~18 orbits at reasonable
computational cost. We then use SpECTRE's Cauchy Characteristic Evolution (CCE)
code to extract the gravitational waves at future null infinity. The
open-source nature of SpECTRE means this is the first time a spectral-type
method for simulating binary black hole evolutions is available to the entire
numerical-relativity community.