Evolution of distorted rotating black holes. I. Methods and tests

We have developed a new numerical code to study the evolution of distorted, rotating black holes. We discuss the numerical methods and gauge conditions we developed to evolve such spacetimes. The code has been put through a series of tests and we report on (a) results of comparisons with codes designed to evolve nonrotating holes, (b) the evolution of Kerr spacetimes for which analytic properties are known, and (c) the evolution of distorted rotating holes. The code accurately reproduces results of the previous NCSA nonrotating code and passes convergence tests. New features of the evolution of rotating black holes not seen in nonrotating holes are identified. With this code we can evolve rotating black holes up to about t=100M, depending on the resolution and angular momentum. We also describe a new family of black hole initial data sets which represent rotating holes with a wide range of distortion parameters, and distorted nonrotating black holes with odd-parity radiation. Finally, we study the limiting slices for a maximally sliced rotating black hole and find good agreement with theoretical predictions.