title: Accurate evolutions of orbiting black-hole binaries without excision.
abstract: We present a new algorithm for evolving orbiting black-hole binaries that does not require excision or a corotating shift. Our algorithm is based on a novel technique to handle the singular puncture conformal factor. This system, based on the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura formulation of Einstein's equations, when used with a "precollapsed" initial lapse, is nonsingular at the start of the evolution and remains nonsingular and stable provided that a good choice is made for the gauge. As a test case, we use this technique to fully evolve orbiting black-hole binaries from near the innermost stable circular orbit regime. We show fourth-order convergence of waveforms and compute the radiated gravitational energy and angular momentum from the plunge. These results are in good agreement with those predicted by the Lazarus approach.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, The University of Texas at Brownsville, Brownsville, Texas 78520, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Campanelli
authors.forename: C O
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Lousto
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Marronetti
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zlochower