Research helps

Some relevant GR references

• Review article on black hole critical phenomena by Carsten Gundlach.
• Lecture notes for an introductory general relativity course by Sean Carroll.
• Review article on black holes by Paul Townsend.
• Brief, but nice introduction to the Einstein equations by John Baez.
• Lecture notes by Matt Choptuik on the 3+1 ADM decomposition of the Einstein equations. This approach is the standard starting point for most numerical relativists.

Computational tools

• Finite differencing techniques
• RNPL (Rapid Numerical Prototyping Language) is a language for expressing time-dependent systems of PDEs using finite-difference techniques. Basic information with examples is in Robert Marsa's thesis. Supplementary information is here.
• Ser is a visualization program built by Matt Choptuik to analyze 1-dimensional time dependent data. Documentation and information on its use:
• Choptuik's overview
• Shoemaker's usage notes
• Liebling's usage notes.
• A java variant of ser is jser. Basic information on it is at intro.
• Some FORTRAN tutorials
• A basic Fortran 77 introduction
• A basic Fortran 90 introduction
• The SGI reference manual on Fortran 77
• Some introductions to UNIX
• BYU EE's tutorial
• Matt Choptuik's introduction for a UBC computational physics class (also as postscript).
• MPI
• Some basic information with additional references and links.

Computing resources

• Beowulf/Linux clusters
• NPACI's cluster page, Rocks
• BYU's Origin2000
• Parallel programming
  • Tutorial/introduction to parallel programming from the Maui High Peformance Computing Center
• Boston University's repository of information about the Origin2000 with links to MPI and parallel computing.
• Using the T90 at SDSC (San Diego Supercomputer Center).
• Advanced Computing Center at UT Austin.

My writeups and possible projects

• Axisymmetric gravitational collapse of rotating scalar fields [pdf version].
• Axisymmetric gravitational collapse of non-rotating charged scalar fields (gravitating electromagnetism and scalar fields) [pdf version].
• Axisymmetric gravitational collapse of fluids.
• Gravitational critical behavior in Einstein-Yang-Mills theories
[pdf version].
• Gravitational critical behavior in Einstein-Yang-Mills-Higgs theories (gravitating monopoles, dyons, etc)
• Instability of black strings