High accuracy simulations of Kerr tails: coordinate dependence and higher multipoles

Understand

We investigate the late time behavior of a scalar field on a fixed Kerr background using a 2+1 dimensional pseudospectral evolution code.

• We compare evolutions of pure axisymmetric multipoles in both Kerr-Schild and Boyer-Lindquist coordinates.
• We find that the late-time power-law decay rate depends upon the slicing of the background, confirming previous theoretical predictions for those decay rates.
• The accuracy of the numerical evolutions is sufficient to decide unambiguously between competing claims in the literature.