Dr Katy Clough

Abstract:

In this work, we introduce ${\mathtt{GRChombo}}:$ a new numerical relativity code which incorporates full adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) using block structured Berger–Rigoutsos grid generation. The code supports non-trivial 'many-boxes-in-many-boxes' mesh hierarchies and massive parallelism through the message passing interface. ${\mathtt{GRChombo}}$ evolves the Einstein equation using the standard BSSN formalism, with an option to turn on CCZ4 constraint damping if required. The AMR capability permits the study of a range of new physics which has previously been computationally infeasible in a full 3 + 1 setting, while also significantly simplifying the process of setting up the mesh for these problems. We show that ${\mathtt{GRChombo}}$ can stably and accurately evolve standard spacetimes such as binary black hole mergers and scalar collapses into black holes, demonstrate the performance characteristics of our code, and discuss various physics problems which stand to benefit from the AMR technique.