Theoretical Studies in Gravitation and Astrophysics

引力和天体物理学的理论研究

基本信息

批准号：
1602536
负责人：
Stuart Shapiro
金额：
$ 15万
依托单位：
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2016-09-01 至 2018-08-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1602536&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Theoretical Studies Gravitation Astrophysics

项目摘要

The LIGO-VIRGO Scientific Collaboration recently reported the first two direct detections of gravitational wave (GW) signals and demonstrated that these events (GW150914 and GW151226) were produced by the inspiral and coalescence of binary black holes. This breakthrough marks the beginning of the era of GW astronomy. The planned research bridges the fields of general relativity and astrophysics, by studying the generation of gravitational waves, relativistic hydrodynamics, and relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. A common thread uniting the different theoretical topics is the crucial role of gravitation, especially relativistic gravitation. This award provides major funding for research in general relativity at UIUC and a significant component of the total support in theoretical astrophysics to that institution. An appreciable portion of the funding is devoted to the education, training and support of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students. These students collaborate with the PI on the majority of research topics funded by the project. The grant supports the activities of the PI's Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) team at UIUC in computational astrophysics and general relativity theory. The training that each of the PI's undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students receives in large-scale computations and scientific visualization, as well as in several different areas of theoretical physics and astrophysics, prepares them to pursue professional careers in a broad range of scientific and technical fields. The computer algorithms and numerical codes that are developed are useful to other groups working in computational physics and astrophysics. Through the research and outreach activities of the PI and his group, the grant helps promote the use of computers and visualization tools at all levels of education, as well as the public awareness of some the latest and most exciting developments in gravitation physics and astrophysics.Compact objects provide the principal forum of the studies, and the dynamics of matter in a strong gravitational field is a major theme. Some of the topics for investigation include the inspiral and coalescence of compact binaries (binary black holes, binary neutron stars and binary black hole--neutron stars), the generation of gravitational waves from binaries and other promising astrophysical sources and the accompanying electromagnetic signals, gravitational collapse, the stability of rotating, relativistic stars and the evolution and final fate of unstable stars, gamma-ray burst sources, circumbinary disks around merging supermassive black holes in the cores of galaxies and quasars, and the profile and observable consequences of dark matter around supermassive black holes in galaxy cores, including the Milky Way. Most of these topics represent long-standing, fundamental problems in theoretical physics requiring large-scale computation for solution. Hence the approach involves to a significant degree large-scale computations on parallel machines, as well as analytical modeling. They comprise both initial value and evolution computations and treat vacuum spacetimes containing black holes as well as spacetimes containing realistic matter sources, magnetic fields and both electromagnetic and neutrino radiation ("multimessenger astronomy"). The results have important implications for astronomical observations, including those planned for gravitational wave interferometers, such as the Advanced LIGO/VIRGO network, GEO, KAGRA, the PTAs and eLISA.

Ligo-Virgo科学合作最近报道了引力波（GW）信号的前两个直接检测，并证明这些事件（GW150914和GW151226）是由二元黑洞的灵感和合并产生的。这一突破标志着GW天文学时代的开始。计划的研究通过研究引力波，相对论流体动力学和相对论磁性水力动力学的产生，从而弥合了一般相对论和天体物理学领域。结合不同理论主题的一个共同线程是引力的关键作用，尤其是相对论重力。该奖项为UIUC的一般相对论研究提供了重大资金，并且是该机构理论天体物理学全部支持的重要组成部分。资金中有明显的一部分专门用于本科生，研究生和博士后学生的教育，培训和支持。这些学生就该项目资助的大多数研究主题与PI合作。该赠款支持UIUC在计算天体物理学和一般相对论理论的UIUC本科生（REU）团队的PI研究经验的活动。 PI的本科，研究生和博士后学生的每个培训都接受了大规模计算和科学可视化，以及在理论物理和天体物理学的几个不同领域中，他们准备在广泛的科学和技术领域从事职业职业。开发的计算机算法和数值代码对计算物理和天体物理学的其他组有用。通过PI及其小组的研究和外展活动，该赠款有助于促进各种教育的计算机和可视化工具的使用，以及公众对重力物理学和Astrophysics中一些最新且最令人兴奋的发展的认识。 Some of the topics for investigation include the inspiral and coalescence of compact binaries (binary black holes, binary neutron stars and binary black hole--neutron stars), the generation of gravitational waves from binaries and other promising astrophysical sources and the accompanying electromagnetic signals, gravitational collapse, the stability of rotating, relativistic stars and the evolution and final fate of unstable stars,伽玛射线爆发源，围绕星系和类星体岩心的超级质量黑洞的圆盘，以及黑物质在星系岩心的超级质量黑洞周围的概况和可观察的后果，包括银河系。这些主题中的大多数代表了理论物理学中长期存在的基本问题，需要大规模计算解决方案。因此，该方法在很大程度上涉及对平行机的大规模计算以及分析建模。它们包括初始值和进化计算，并处理包含黑洞的真空空间以及包含现实物质源，磁场以及电磁场和中微子辐射的空间（“多通用器天文学”）。结果对天文观测具有重要意义，包括计划进行重力波干涉仪的观察，例如高级Ligo/Pirgo网络，GEO，Kagra，PTA和ELISA。