Direct Evidence of a Dual Cascade in Gravitational Wave Turbulence

We present the first direct numerical simulation of gravitational wave turbulence. General relativity equations are solved numerically in a periodic box with a diagonal metric tensor depending on two space coordinates only, g_{ij}≡g_{ii}(x,y,t)δ_{ij}, and with an additional small-scale dissipative term. We limit ourselves to weak gravitational waves and to a freely decaying turbulence. We find that an initial metric excitation at intermediate wave number leads to a dual cascade of energy and wave action. When the direct energy cascade reaches the dissipative scales, a transition is observed in the temporal evolution of energy from a plateau to a power-law decay, while the inverse cascade front continues to propagate toward low wave numbers. The wave number and frequency-wave-number spectra are found to be compatible with the theory of weak wave turbulence and the characteristic timescale of the dual cascade is that expected for four-wave resonant interactions. The simulation reveals that an initially weak gravitational wave turbulence tends to become strong as the inverse cascade of wave action progresses with a selective amplification of the fluctuations g_{11} and g_{22}.