Waveform propagation in black hole spacetimes: Evaluating the quality of numerical solutions

Abstract

We compute the propagation and scattering of linear gravitational waves off a Schwarzschild black hole using a numerical code which solves a generalization of the Zerilli equation to a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. Since the solution to this problem is well understood it represents a very good testbed for evaluating our ability to perform three-dimensional computations of gravitational waves in spacetimes in which a black hole event horizon is present.