This award to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) supports the research in general relativity and theoretical astrophysics of the PI, Professor Stuart L. Shapiro. In addition to the PI, the funding supports one postdoctoral research associate, one graduate student during the two summer months and two undergraduate (REU) students to assist in the research. The intellectual scope of this research program spans several problems involving general relativity, the generation of gravitational radiation, relativistic hydrodynamics, and relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. A common thread uniting the different theoretical topics is the crucial role of gravitation, especially relativistic gravitation. Compact astronomical objects such as black holes and neutron stars provide the principal forum, 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, binary black hole neutron stars and binary white dwarf neutron stars), the generation of gravitational waves from binaries and other promising astrophysical sources, gravitational collapse, the stability of rotating, relativistic stars and the evolution and final fate of unstable stars, gamma-ray burst sources, and the formation and growth of supermassive black holes in the cores of galaxies and quasars. 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. Many of the numerical calculations employ the state-of-the-art computational resources of the UIUC's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). They comprise both initial value and evolution computations and treat vacuum spacetimes containing black holes as well as spacetimes containing realistic matter sources and magnetic fields. The results have important implications for astronomical observations, including those planned for gravitational wave interferometers, such as LIGO and LISA, and have the potential to transform our understanding of the underlying phenomena.
This project has broader impacts beyond the solutions to the specific research problems that it tackles. 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.
The intellectual scope of this research program spanned several problems involving general relativity, the generation of gravitational radiation, relativistic hydrodynamics, and relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. A common thread uniting the different theoretical topics was the crucial role of gravitation, especially relativistic gravitation. Compact objects provided the principal forum, and the dynamics of matter in a strong gravitational field is a major theme. Some of the topics investigated included the inspiral and coalescence of compact binaries (binary black holes, binary neutron stars, binary black hole--neutron stars and binary white dwarf--neutron stars), the generation of gravitational waves from binaries and other promising astrophysical sources, gravitational collapse, the stability of rotating, relativistic stars and the evolution and final fate of unstable stars, gamma-ray burst sources, and the formation and growth of supermassive black holes in the cores of galaxies and quasars. Most of these topics represent long-standing, fundamental problems in theoretical physics requiring large-scale computation for solution. Hence the approach involved large-scale computations on parallel machines, as well as analytical modeling. Many of the numerical calculations employed state-of-the-art computational resources They comprised both initial value and evolution computations and treated vacuum spacetimes containing black holes as well as spacetimes containing realistic matter sources and magnetic fields. The results have important implications for astronomical observations, including those planned for gravitational wave interferometers, such as LIGO and LISA. Movies showing highlights of some of the simulations may be found at http://tinyurl.com/shapiromovies. This project has broader impacts beyond the solutions to the specific research problems that it tackled. The research bridges the fields of general relativity and astrophysics. An appreciable portion of the funding provided by the grant was devoted to the education, training and support of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students. These students collaborated with the PI on the majority of research topics funded by the project. The grant supported 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 received in large-scale computations and scientific visualization, as well as in several different areas of theoretical physics and astrophysics, prepared them to pursue professional careers in a broad range of scientific and technical fields. The computer algorithms and numerical codes that were 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 helped 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.
