The NSF's two LIGO gravitational wave detectors are among a number of new and planned facilities around the globe designed to detect gravitational waves. Once operating at their optimal design sensitivities, these detectors are expected to open a new vista in high-energy astrophysics, gravitational wave astronomy, in which gravitational radiation incident on Earth could be analyzed to extract previously inaccessible information about its sources. A great deal of work must yet be done to make gravitational wave astronomy a reality. This award sponsors the development of mathematical techniques needed to calculate approximations to the gravitational wave signals arising from an astrophysical in-spiral of pairs of black holes or neutron stars. These are likely to be among the strongest signals for detection and are consequently among the most critical to understand theoretically. The research funded here will be conducted in concert with three other groups around the U.S., and will tightly integrate the development of new mathematical techniques and the generation of computer codes implementing them. In addition to the main goal of producing a reliable template for the gravitational wave signal arising from binary systems, this work aims to produce new, astrophysically-realistic initial-data sets describing binary systems for other numerical relativity efforts around the country and around the world.
The mathematical terrain underlying this project is largely unexplored. As a result, there are many educational opportunities for under-graduate and graduate students participating in this work. Students need little preparation beyond their course work to begin contributing, and the chance to become involved in timely and important research in relativity theory --- a prominent sub-field of physics in the popular imagination --- could help attract young people to the field. In addition, this research will be conducted by a young PI in a young relativity effort at a young research institution, Florida Atlantic University. The award will help establish a new group in gravitational theory and foster close research ties between it and established groups around the U.S. This new group will help raise the profile of physics research, particularly in relativity theory, throughout southern Florida via its members' planned vigorous public outreach efforts.
