qc / 0 61 01 28 v 1 2 6 O ct 2 00 6 Calibration of Moving Puncture Simulations

We present single and binary black hole simulations that follow the “moving puncture” paradigm of simulating black-hole spacetimes without excision, and use “moving boxes” mesh refinement. Focussing on binary black hole configurations where the simulations cover roughly two orbits, we address five major issues determining the quality of our results: numerical discretization error, finite extraction radius of the radiation signal, physical appropriateness of initial data, gauge choice and computational performance. We also compare results we have obtained with the BAM code described here with the independent LEAN code.