Gravitational waves from black hole binaries: modeling, astrophysics and strong-field tests

来自黑洞双星的引力波：建模、天体物理学和强场测试

• 批准号: 0900735
• 负责人: Emanuele Berti
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: University of Mississippi
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0900735&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Gravitational; waves; black; hole; binaries

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Two black holes gradually approaching each other and eventually merging to release a large amount of energy in gravitational waves are one of the most promising sources for gravitational wave observatories, such as LIGO and LISA. One of the main challenges in gravitational wave data analysis consists in extracting the signal emitted by such binaries from the noisy detector output. For the extraction to be successful, accurate theoretical "template" waveforms of the signal are needed. The goal of the research supported by this award is to improve theoretical knowledge of gravitational waveforms from merging black holes. A combination of techniques will be used: (1) a "post-Newtonian" expansion of Einstein's theory of gravity during the early inspiral, when the black holes are far apart and small corrections to Newtonian theory provide a reasonable description of the system; (2) a numerical solution of Einstein's equations when the black holes merge; (3) a technique known as "black hole perturbation theory" when the system finally settles down to a single rotating black hole solution.Black hole collisions will be studied both in the astrophysical context and from a theoretical point of view. Improving knowledge of theoretical waveforms from astrophysical black hole binaries and exploring possible astrophysical implications is timely and relevant for gravitational wave searches in LIGO data, has applications in observational astrophysics, and is of fundamental importance in the planning of LISA. The study of black hole collisions at speeds close to the speed of light is a theoretical investigation that will reveal poorly known details of Einstein's theory of gravity in extreme conditions and will allow a quantitative estimate of the maximum energy and luminosity that can be radiated in a merger, solving long-standing questions in fundamental gravitational physics. This research will provide the opportunity to train a graduate student in gravitational physics.

该奖项根据 2009 年《美国复苏和再投资法案》（公法 111-5）提供资金。 两个黑洞逐渐相互接近并最终合并以引力波的形式释放大量能量，是LIGO和LISA等引力波观测站最有希望的来源之一。引力波数据分析的主要挑战之一在于从嘈杂的探测器输出中提取此类二进制文件发出的信号。为了成功提取，需要准确的信号理论“模板”波形。该奖项支持的研究目标是提高黑洞合并引力波形的理论知识。 将使用多种技术的组合：（1）早期螺旋期间爱因斯坦引力理论的“后牛顿”扩展，当时黑洞相距很远，对牛顿理论的小修正提供了对系统的合理描述； （2）黑洞合并时爱因斯坦方程的数值解； （3）当系统最终稳定在单个旋转黑洞解时，称为“黑洞微扰理论”的技术。黑洞碰撞将在天体物理学背景和理论角度进行研究。提高对天体物理黑洞双星理论波形的了解并探索可能的天体物理含义对于 LIGO 数据中的引力波搜索来说是及时且相关的，在观测天体物理中具有应用，并且对于 LISA 的规划具有根本重要性。对黑洞以接近光速的速度碰撞的研究是一项理论研究，它将揭示极端条件下爱因斯坦引力理论鲜为人知的细节，并将允许定量估计在黑洞中可以辐射的最大能量和光度。合并，解决基础引力物理学中长期存在的问题。这项研究将为培养引力物理学研究生提供机会。