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.

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏与再投资法》（公法111-5）资助的。 两个黑洞逐渐接近彼此，并最终合并以在引力波中释放大量能量，这是引力波观测站的最有希望的来源之一，例如Ligo和Lisa。重力波数据分析的主要挑战之一是从嘈杂的检测器输出中提取此类二进制文件发出的信号。为了使提取成功，需要信号的精确理论“模板”波形。该奖项支持的研究的目的是通过合并黑洞来提高引力波形的理论知识。 将使用多种技术的组合：（1）在早期灵感中，爱因斯坦重力理论的“后”扩展，当时黑洞距离分开很远，对牛顿理论的小校正提供了对系统的合理描述； （2）当黑洞合并时，爱因斯坦方程的数值解； （3）一种被称为“黑洞扰动理论”的技术，当系统最终沉降到单个旋转的黑洞解决方案时。从天体物理环境和理论的角度来看，将研究黑洞碰撞。从天体物理黑洞二进制文件中提高理论波形并探索可能的天体物理含义与LIGO数据中的重力波搜索相关，在观察天体物理学中有应用，并且在LISA规划中具有基本意义。对接近光速速度的黑洞碰撞的研究是一项理论研究，它将揭示爱因斯坦在极端条件下重力理论的鲜明的细节，并将允许对合并中可以放射的最大能量和光度的定量估计，从而在基本物理学中解决长期存在的问题。这项研究将为培训重力物理学的研究生提供机会。