  At early times in numerical evolutions of binary black holes, current
simulations contain an initial burst of spurious gravitational radiation (also
called "junk radiation") which is not astrophysically realistic. The spurious
radiation is a consequence of how the binary-black-hole initial data are
constructed: the initial data are typically assumed to be conformally flat. In
this paper, I adopt a curved conformal metric that is a superposition of two
boosted, non-spinning black holes that are approximately 15 orbits from merger.
I compare junk radiation of the superposed-boosted-Schwarzschild (SBS) initial
data with the junk of corresponding conformally flat, maximally sliced (CFMS)
initial data. The SBS junk is smaller in amplitude than the CFMS junk, with the
junk's leading-order spectral modes typically being reduced by a factor of
order two or more.
