CCM is a way to avoid such limitations by combining the strong points of characteristic and Cauchy
evolution into a global evolution [33]. One of the prime goals of computational relativity is the simulation of
the inspiral and merger of binary black holes. Given the appropriate worldtube data for a binary system in
its interior, characteristic evolution can supply the exterior spacetime and the radiated waveform. But
determination of the worldtube data for a binary requires an interior Cauchy evolution. CCM is designed to
solve such global problems. The potential advantages of CCM over traditional boundary conditions are
These advantages have been realized in model tests, but CCM has not yet been achieved in
fully nonlinear three-dimensional general relativity. The early attempts to implement CCM in
general relativity involved the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) [12] formulation for the Cauchy
evolution. The difficulties were later traced to a pathology in the way boundary conditions have
traditionally been applied in ADM codes. Instabilities introduced at boundaries have emerged as a
major problem common to all ADM code development. A linearized study [206, 207] of ADM
evolution-boundary algorithms with prescribed values of lapse and shift shows the following:
The evolution satisfied the original criterion for robust stability [207]: that there be no exponential growth when the initial Cauchy data and free boundary data are prescribed as random numbers (in the linearized regime). These results gave some initial optimism that CCM might be possible with an ADM code if the boundary condition was properly treated. However, it was subsequently shown that ADM is only weakly hyperbolic so that in the linear regime there are instabilities which grow as a power law in time. In the nonlinear regime, it is symptomatic of weakly hyperbolic systems that such secular instabilities become exponential. This has led to a refined criterion for robust stability as a standardized test [5].
CCM cannot work unless the Cauchy and characteristic codes have robustly stable boundaries. This is necessarily so because interpolations continually introduce short wavelength noise into the neighborhood of the boundary. It was demonstrated some time ago that the PITT characteristic code has a robustly stable boundary (see Section 3.5.3), but robustness of the Cauchy boundary has only recently been studied.
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