RUI: Numerical Simulations of Neutron Stars, Black Holes and Gravitational Radiation

根据该奖项，将开发用于研究涉及相对论引力、强电磁场和旋转的天体物理系统的数值工具。 这些工具将包括在固定引力场中演化流体和电磁场的计算机代码，演化相对论引力场本身的代码，以及将演化具有物质和电磁源的引力场的组合代码。 还将开发用于核查整合准确性的工具。 这些代码将被优化用于最新一代的超级计算机，公开发布，并在科学界提供。 在开发这些代码的过程中，计算科学家将在本科生，研究生和博士后水平进行培训。 开发人员还将把这些代码应用于天体物理学和引力物理学研究的前沿问题。这项工作的动机是一些天体物理系统，包括：吸积黑洞和中子星;合并中子星和黑洞;在核心坍缩超新星中形成的快速旋转中子星;以及坍缩超大质量恒星。 总的来说，这些天体是当前天体物理学研究的一大部分焦点。 它们可能是可探测到的引力波、强大的X射线发射和伽马射线爆发的来源。 然而，到目前为止，他们一直拒绝理解，因为流体，电磁场和引力场的基本物理是复杂的，非线性的，并且依赖于时间。 只有数值积分才能解开黑洞吸积的基本物理学，测试伽马射线爆发产生的场景，并从合并的致密双星中产生更准确的引力波形预测。 所需的数值方法尚不存在;它们将在该奖项下开发。

Under this award, numerical tools will be developed for the study of astrophysical systems involving relativistic gravity, strong electromagnetic fields, and rotation. These tools will include computer codes for evolving fluids and electromagnetic fields in a fixed gravitational field, codes for evolving the relativistic gravitational field itself, and a combined code that will evolve gravitational fields with both material and electromagnetic sources. Tools for verifying the accuracy of the integrations will also be developed. The codes will be optimized for use on the latest generation of supercomputers, publicly released, and made available within the scientific community. In the course of developing these codes, computational scientistswill be trained at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels. The codes will also be applied by thedevelopers to problems at the forefront of astrophysics and gravitation physics research.This work is motivated by a number of astrophysical systems, including: accreting black holes and neutron stars; coalescing binary neutron stars and black holes; rapidly rotating neutron stars formed in core-collapse supernovae; and collapsing supermassive stars. Taken together, these objects are the focus of a large fraction of current astrophysical research. They are the likely source of detectable gravitational waves, powerful X-ray emission, and gamma-ray bursts. So far, however, they have resistedunderstanding because the underlying physics of the fluid, the electromagnetic field, and the gravitational field is complicated, nonlinear, and time dependent. Only numerical integrations can unlock the fundamental physics of black hole accretion, test scenarios for the generation of gamma-ray bursts, and generate more accurate predictions for gravitational waveforms from coalescing compact binaries. The required numerical methods do not yet exist; they will be developed under this award.