Theoretical Studies in Gravitation and Astrophysics

这一奖项授予伊利诺伊大学香槟分校(UIUC)，支持圆周率派教授斯图尔特·L·夏皮罗在广义相对论和理论天体物理学方面的研究。除了PI之外，这笔资金还支持一名博士后助理研究员、两个夏季月的一名研究生和两名本科生(REU)协助研究。这一研究计划的智力范围跨越了几个问题，涉及广义相对论、引力辐射的产生、相对论流体力学和相对论磁流体动力学。连接不同理论主题的一条共同主线是引力的关键作用，特别是相对论引力。黑洞和中子星等致密天体提供了主要论坛，而强引力场中物质的动力学是一个主要主题。一些研究课题包括致密双星(双星黑洞、双星中子星、双星黑洞中子星和双星白矮星)的激发和合并，双星和其他有希望的天体物理源产生引力波，引力坍缩，旋转相对论恒星的稳定性和不稳定恒星的演化和最终命运，伽马射线爆发源，以及星系和类星体核心中超大质量黑洞的形成和增长。这些主题中的大多数代表了理论物理中长期存在的基本问题，需要大规模的计算才能解决。因此，该方法在很大程度上涉及到在并行机上进行大规模计算，以及分析建模。许多数值计算使用了UIUC国家超级计算应用中心(NCSA)最先进的计算资源。它们包括初值和演化计算，并处理包含黑洞的真空时空以及包含真实物质源和磁场的时空。这些结果对天文观测具有重要的影响，包括计划用于引力波干涉仪的天文观测，如LIGO和LISA，并有可能改变我们对潜在现象的理解。该项目具有更广泛的影响，超出了它所解决的具体研究问题的解决方案。相当大一部分资金用于本科生、研究生和博士后的教育、培训和支持。这些学生在该项目资助的大部分研究课题上与PI合作。这笔赠款支持加州大学本科生研究体验(REU)团队在计算天体物理学和广义相对论方面的活动。PI的每个本科生、研究生和博士后都接受了大规模计算和科学可视化以及理论物理和天体物理几个不同领域的培训，为他们在广泛的科学和技术领域追求专业生涯做好了准备。开发的计算机算法和数值代码对其他从事计算物理和天体物理工作的小组很有用。通过国际和平协会及其小组的研究和推广活动，赠款有助于在各级教育中促进计算机和可视化工具的使用，以及提高公众对引力物理和天体物理领域一些最新和最令人兴奋的发展的认识。

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.