Testing the Cactus code on exact solutions of the Einstein field equations

The article presents a series of numerical simulations of exact solutions of the Einstein equations performed using the Cactus code, a complete 3-dimensional machinery for numerical relativity. We describe an application (“thorn”) for the Cactus code that can be used for evolving a variety of exact solutions, with and without matter, including solutions used in modern cosmology for modeling the early stages of the universe. Our main purpose has been to test the Cactus code on these wellknown examples, focusing mainly on the stability and convergence of the code.