Introduction to Isolated Horizons in Numerical Relativity

Olaf Dreyer, Badri Krishnan, Eric Schnetter, Deirdre Shoemaker

Published 2002-06-03, updated 2004-01-11Version 2

We present a coordinate-independent method for extracting mass (M) and angular momentum (J) of a black hole in numerical simulations. This method, based on the isolated horizon framework, is applicable both at late times when the black hole has reached equilibrium, and at early times when the black holes are widely separated. We show how J and M can be determined in numerical simulations in terms of only those quantities which are intrinsic to the apparent horizon. We also present a numerical method for finding the rotational symmetry vector field (required to calculate J) on the horizon.