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Frame-dragging vortexes and tidal tendexes attached to colliding black holes: visualizing the curvature of spacetime
Robert Owen1, Jeandrew Brink, Yanbei Chen
1Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
Abstract:
When one splits spacetime into space plus time, the spacetime curvature (Weyl tensor) gets split into an "electric" part E(jk) that describes tidal gravity and a "magnetic" part B(jk) that describes differential dragging of inertial frames. We introduce tools for visualizing B(jk) (frame-drag vortex lines, their vorticity, and vortexes) and E(jk) (tidal tendex lines, their tendicity, and tendexes) and also visualizations of a black-hole horizon's (scalar) vorticity and tendicity. We use these tools to elucidate the nonlinear dynamics of curved spacetime in merging black-hole binaries.
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