Numerical relativity and asymptotic flatness

It is highly plausible that the region of spacetime far from an isolated gravitating body is, in some sense, asymptotically Minkowskian. However theoretical studies of the full nonlinear theory, initiated by Bondi et al (1962 Proc. R. Soc. A 269 21-51), Sachs (1962 Proc. R. Soc. A 270 103-26) and Newman and Unti (1962 J. Math. Phys. 3 891-901), rely on careful, clever, a priori choices of a chart (and tetrad) and so are not readily accessible to the numerical relativist, who chooses her/his chart on the basis of quite different grounds. This paper seeks to close this gap. Starting from data available in a typical numerical evolution, we construct a chart and tetrad which are, asymptotically, sufficiently close to the theoretical ones, so that the key concepts of the Bondi news function, Bondi mass and its rate of decrease can be estimated. In particular, these estimates can be expressed in the numerical relativist's chart as numerical relativity recipes.