5–9 Jul 2026
University of Canterbury
Pacific/Auckland timezone

Light, Gravity and Coffee (Astrophysical Implications of Non-linear Gravitational and Electromagnetic Scattering)

8 Jul 2026, 14:50
20m
Room E5 (Rātā / Engineering Core Building, University of Canterbury)

Room E5

Rātā / Engineering Core Building, University of Canterbury

63 Creyke Road, Ilam, Christchurch 8041, New Zealand
Parallel Session Talk Parallel sessions

Speaker

Jesse Satherley (University of Canterbury)

Description

The interaction between GWs and EWs is interesting, but it has only been explored in the vacuum case.
Theory for the non-vacuum case does exist, but it has not been implemented numerically.
We extend current initial value boundary problem numerical simulations to include an arbitrary energy-momentum tensor, which is then used to prescribe electromagnetism.
However, adding electromagnetism introduces two new propagating modes associated with the EWs.

To do this, we use the conformal field equations.
They are a reformulation of the Einstein field equations using conformal compactification to include infinity within a finite domain.
The conformal field equations can then be posed as a initial value boundary problem.

To simplify the system, we implement the boundary adapted evolution system for GWs.
This modification adapts the GW evolution to the boundary of the computation domain.
Alongside this, a new boundary adapted gauge is found.
This new system simplifies the boundary data and analysis for the arising initial value boundary problem and removes two propagating modes associated with the GWs.

Research Area Gravitational waves: neutron stars and supernovae

Authors

Chris Stevens (University of Canterbury) Jesse Satherley (University of Canterbury)

Presentation materials