CDS&E: Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters

CDS

• 批准号: 1312945
• 负责人: Frederic Rasio
• 金额: $ 44.84万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-09-01 至 2017-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1312945&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CDS&E; Black; Holes; Dense; Star

Many stars form in large clusters containing anywhere from thousands to many millions of objects. Stars in these clusters are born with a broad range of masses. Furthermore, the most massive stars evolve quickly, ending their lives in just a few million years and leaving behind black holes as remnants. The star clusters themselves, however, can continue to live for many billions of years, and indeed the globular clusters seen in many galaxies are thought to contain some of the oldest stars in the Universe. Therefore, many of the star clusters we see today should contain large numbers of black holes formed a long time ago. This research will use state-of-the-art supercomputer simulations to study the formation and evolution of these black holes in a variety of star cluster environments. It will also leverage innovative hybrid computational techniques, including General-Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU).The study of black hole formation and evolution is important in many areas of physics and
astronomy, including galaxy formation and cosmology, the study of quasars and other active
galactic nuclei, general relativity and gravitational wave astronomy. The stellar dynamics supercomputer codes to be developed for this project are general tools, which will be useful
for studying many other problems involving dense star clusters with or without massive black
holes. The planned research activities will involve the training of undergraduate students at Northwestern University, and will likely include students from under-represented minorities. Graduate students
will also receive training and mentoring. Outreach activities are also planned that will take
advantage of Dearborn Observatory on the Northwestern campus in Evanston, as well as the resources of the nearby Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum in Chicago.

许多恒星形成了大型星团，其中包含从数千到数百万个物体。这些星团中的恒星生来就有大范围的质量。此外，最大质量的恒星演化速度很快，在短短几百万年内就会结束它们的生命，留下黑洞作为残余物。然而，星团本身可以继续存在数十亿年，事实上，在许多星系中看到的球状星团被认为包含了宇宙中一些最古老的恒星。因此，我们今天看到的许多星团中应该包含了很久以前形成的大量黑洞。这项研究将使用最先进的超级计算机模拟来研究这些黑洞在各种星团环境中的形成和演化。它还将利用创新的混合计算技术，包括图形处理单元通用计算(GPGPU)。黑洞形成和演化的研究在物理学和天文学的许多领域都很重要，包括星系形成和宇宙学、类星体和其他活动星系核的研究、广义相对论和引力波天文学。将为该项目开发的恒星动力学超级计算机代码是通用工具，将有助于研究许多其他问题，包括有或没有大质量黑洞的致密星团。计划中的研究活动将涉及对西北大学本科生的培训，可能会包括来自代表性不足的少数民族的学生。研究生也将接受培训和指导。此外，还计划开展外展活动，利用位于埃文斯顿西北校区的迪尔伯恩天文台以及附近的芝加哥阿德勒天文馆和天文博物馆的资源。