Implementation of a Green-Hollands-Zimmerman-Teukolsky puncture scheme for gravitational self-force calculations

Abstract

Postadiabatic models of extreme- and intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals will require calculations of second-order gravitational self-force effects in the spacetime of a spinning, Kerr black hole. We take a step toward such calculations by implementing the recently formulated Teukolsky puncture scheme with Green-Hollands-Zimmerman metric reconstruction [Classical Quantum Gravity 39, 015019 (2022)]. This scheme eliminates the critical obstacle of gauge singularities that arise in the standard ``no-string'' metric reconstruction. Our first proof-of-principle implementation is limited to the simple case of circular orbits in Schwarzschild spacetime, but the method also applies to generic orbits on a Kerr background. We conclude with a discussion of various approaches to the second-order self-force problem in Kerr.