Collaborative Research: Modeling Gravitational Collapse

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The process of gravitational collapse with an emphasis on strong field effects and the threshold of black hole formation will be studied. This work will examine the collapse of a variety of matter fields with axial symmetry. A numerical code which has been developed and successfully tested for vacuum gravitational collapse and scalar field collapse in axisymmetry will be extended in new directions in order to consider additional fields and more extreme scenarios. Included in these directions is the incorporation of adaptive mesh refinement which will provide high resolution for large dynamic ranges. An additional gravitational degree of freedom will be added as well as electromagnetism. Work will continue on examining the head-on collision of black holes and boson stars using black hole excision.This work will advance understanding of strong field gravity and will provide new and important dynamical results concerning black hole formation and evolution. In addition, this work will aid in the ongoing development of a computational laboratory with which to explore the gravitational processes and astrophysical objects in the universe.