The non-linear perturbation of a black hole by gravitational waves. I. The Bondi-Sachs mass loss

Understand

The excitation of a black hole by infalling matter or radiation has been studied for a long time, mostly in linear perturbation theory.

• In this paper we study numerically the response of a Schwarzschild black hole to an incoming gravitational wave pulse.
• We present a numerically well-posed initial boundary value problem for the generalized conformal field equations in which a wave profile for the ingoing wave is specified at an outer time-like boundary which then hits an initially static and spherically symmetric black hole.
• The non-linear interaction of the black hole with the gravitational wave leads to scattered radiation moving back out.