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When can we expect to see numerical simulations of GR for cases that are not highly symmetric? Say 10^3 blobs of matter in an arbitrary initial configuration.
Estimate parameters of the problem.
Size of the simulation region?
Resolution?
Boundary conditions?
Duration of simulation?
resolution - 1 meter
size of region - 10^6 steps = 10^6 meters
Out of curiosity, why are you thinking about this? Seems very random.. What situation is there where there are 10^3 relativistic, interacting masses?
I am just trying to understand why people do not do numerical simulation of GR.
If you want to investigate on your own, you can check out any of the papers that come out of the research group. Here's one, for example:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0809/0809.0002v2.pdf
Thank you. Cool paper. Are you in New York or California?
But they do.
We certainly do. I make (and am currently working with identical data, actually!) movies like the one hamster143 just posted, as a matter of fact! The project is called sxs, and you can find the website here: www.black-holes.org . That's where that video comes from, although it's a few years dated at this point. We also do things like neutron star - black hole mergers, but I don't know of any simulations anyone in our group is doing or has done with 3 or more celestial bodies.
No you cannot.I can do the same thing with Newton's law of gravity.
First off, these are not quantum mechanics calculations. It is GR, but still classical.This is my equation: F = m*a = k* m1m2/r^2, and it can model planets and all their moons pretty accurately, so I do not see how can QM equations can be any better and what could possibly be the difference?
Even so, it sounds like you are getting some interesting exposure to these things. I never learned stuff like that in undergrad.What I personally do is boring undergraduate slave labor, so I'm not a terribly interesting case!
Is there anyway you could coax a gradstudent to come on here and answer a few questions for the curious folks? Maybe they'd enjoy bragging about their work for a bit :)I must confess that I am only a 2nd year undergraduate and my knowledge of a lot of the methodology behind how we solve and evolve the Einstein equations is minimal (I mostly just do visualization of the data to make the movies like you saw above). However, I believe hamster143's explanation is correct, at least in spirit if not in detail. One starts with a set of additional conditions and constraints, and then you solve spatial slices always enforcing (or checking) the constraints. Sorry I can't give a better explanation, perhaps in a couple of years!
No you cannot.
That video shows decaying orbits due to gravitational radiation. Neither is possible in Newton's law of gravity.
And second, even in Einstein's time, astronomy measurements of bodies in the solar system showed deviations from Newton's Laws. The data fits GR though. Also, with current measurements, the deviations from Newton's laws can be even more interesting.
Maybe your question is: Why do GR simulations?
Because while we can solve the two body problem in Newtonian mechanics (but have trouble with the three body and above).
We can't solve the two body problem in GR!
So simulations are very important.
It currently is the only way to make contact between experiment and theory in many cases (especially in the gravitational wave calculation like in that video).
What's your point?
You're correct, you do not need full GR to model the solar system. To leading order, you probably don't need GR at all. But for planets like mercury, you can probably use a Newtonian approximation to GR, or some other such approximation, in order to get a result within the desired precision.
I don't understand what the point of your post is... Do you want someone to do a solar system simulation using full GR? If so, this would be a colossal waste of computing time.
It would be a waste of computer time because the gravity is so weak in the solar system, that you can calculate the metric due to a massive body (we CAN analytically solve some one body problems in GR), and then just treat the planets as test particle moving in this background. I do not know of any orbit measurements in the solar system that this level of approximation doesn't fully cover. Maybe someone in astronomy can comment.Huh?? Why would that be a waste of computer time?
Write down the equation and I will do it in less than 5 hours.
Are you not a programmer?
We're saying the predictions were made with GR to within the experimental limits. There is no reason they must solve everything the way you are suggesting, as that is often overkill.Are you really saying that no one ever even bothered to check those GR equations by simulating complete Solar system? Why then do you think those equations are better than Newton's equations, how can you verify them otherwise, by observing black holes collisions ?
Ugh.You have yet to show me any GR software that can simulate the complete Solar system, while there is thousands of them that can do it Newton's laws of motion and gravity, and with great precision even through millions of years of simulated time. The "error" then is obviously not in the equation, but in our measurements, estimates, approximation of point masses and computer precision.
If he'd be willing to come talk basics about his research, that would be a lot of fun. I've always been curious how they do numerical GR.I know someone (online) who is a numerical relativist working on the 2-body problem at The API in Jena (Germany), but if he's on this forum I don't know what his nickname is. He's a recent PhD so I'd say that would work... maybe I can ask him to come here, or I can relay a question to him if you like?
My understanding is that in analytic solutions they use symmetry arguments and boundary conditions at infinity to constrain the form of the metric, which effectively puts in the Weyl terms. Maybe that is not correct, but even if it is along the right track, in dynamic situations you don't have those luxuries. Naively it looks like the Weyl curvature can just evolve however it wants (I assume that is wrong for some reason though).
Gravitational radiation? Can you support that statement with some reference where I can see exact equations used in such simulations, or if you can just write the equation down here, please?
I also have a very limited understanding of the issue for GR simulation. But it does seem like two of the issues are initial conditions and coordinate systems.
Nabeshin,
How do people even do numerical simulations?
Naively, when I look at Einstein's equations, it only gives information for the Ricci curvature ... so what determines the Weyl curvature evolution?
Stingray said:Einstein's equation: [tex]R_{ab} - \\frac{1}{2} g_{ab} R = 8\\pi T_{ab}[/tex] . This is a nonlinear PDE. Unlike in Newtonian gravity, the field has its own dynamical degrees of freedom in GR. You can not code up anything to solve this in 5 hours. You need a great deal of theoretical knowledge even to turn it into something you might try to write into a program. It is still extremely difficult and time consuming to get high quality simulations. The problem is VASTLY more complicated than solving a problem in Newtonian gravity.
r
M1-------------------M2
r'
M1->-----------<-M2
That said, something like the solar system does not need full GR. It is adequate to use what is called the post-Newtonian approximation of it. This assume weak fields and slow speeds to analytically simplify the equations. The result can be simulated without much effort. The very lowest order corrections have a similar effect to making the gravitational field of the Sun look like it is coming from a somewhat more oblate object. This kind of thing is included in modern simulations of the solar system.
hamster143 said:It is not necessary to use numerical GR to model solar system, because solar system can be modeled analytically to a high degree of accuracy.
GR corrections to Newton's law are in good agreement with experiment.
@Dragger: My angry friend, with slight amusement I acknowledge your emotional distress, but I do not recall to have been talking to you before, so can you just tell me what is it we are arguing about and what did I say to make you cry?
JustinLevy said:It would be a waste of computer time because the gravity is so weak in the solar system...
...it is a waste of computer time because you don't seem to understand how massive these calculations are.
Since you clearly do not know this field...
Let's make this very clear right now.
Are you denying that Newton's gravity cannot explain the precession of mercury (already mentioned to you previously)? Are you actually claiming these must be error in measurements since it disagrees with Newton?
If you are here to promote the Newtonian view over Relativity, I am not interested in having this discussion any further.