The post-Newtonian and fully general relativistic simulations begin with the same initial star. It is uniformly rotating at mass-shedding and marginally unstable to radial collapse.

The equation of state is dominated by thermal radiation pressure and given by the following:

We cut away the front half of the star to show the density profile in the meridional plane. Density is plotted on the logarithmic scale shown below. Densities are color-coded relative to the central density.