A Beginner's Guide to Numerical Relativity

This turorial session will start with the method of finite differences and its use in solving ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations. I will then cover issues specific to simulations of general relativity: coordinate invariance and spacetime singularities. I will explain how these issues led to longstanding problems wih ill posedness and growth of constraint violating modes, and how those difficulties were overcome to yield successful binary black hole simulations. I will then briefly mention how matter is incorporated into numerical relativity simulations.