Title: Python Open Source Waveform Extractor (POWER): An open source, Python package to monitor and post-process numerical relativity simulations,
Abstract: Numerical simulations of Einstein's field equations provide unique insights
into the physics of compact objects moving at relativistic speeds, and which
are driven by strong gravitational interactions. Numerical relativity has
played a key role to firmly establish gravitational wave astrophysics as a new
field of research, and it is now paving the way to establish whether
gravitational wave radiation emitted from compact binary mergers is accompanied
by electromagnetic and astro-particle counterparts. As numerical relativity
continues to blend in with routine gravitational wave data analyses to validate
the discovery of gravitational wave events, it is essential to develop open
source tools to streamline these studies. Motivated by our own experience as
users and developers of the open source, community software, the Einstein
Toolkit, we present an open source, Python package that is ideally suited to
monitor and post-process the data products of numerical relativity simulations,
and compute the gravitational wave strain at future null infinity in high
performance environments. We showcase the application of this new package to
post-process a large numerical relativity catalog and extract higher-order
waveform modes from numerical relativity simulations of eccentric binary black
hole mergers and neutron star mergers. This new software fills a critical void
in the arsenal of tools provided by the Einstein Toolkit Consortium to the
numerical relativity community.