Collaborative Research: Black Hole Accretion Theory and Computation Network

该项目将在伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校、加州大学伯克利分校和普林斯顿大学建立一个理论和计算天体物理学网络，以推进黑洞吸积和外流理论。物质在黑洞上的吸积是许多天体物理和引力现象的核心，但目前的理论缺乏自洽的模型，既适用于辐射力重要的高吸积率流动，也适用于低吸积率流动，其中无碰撞的等离子体效应很重要。网络团队汇集了高性能计算技术、天体物理和等离子体物理方面的专业知识，以满足这一需求。该团队将开发一个研究发光吸积黑洞的一般相对论、辐射磁流体动力学程序，以及一个具有各向异性电子和离子压力、传导、粘度以及辐射加热和冷却的多流体相对论磁流体动力学程序，以研究缓慢吸积系统。这些新的代码将被用来解决关于内部吸积盘的结构和观测外观以及据信为相对论喷流提供动力的大规模磁场的起源和维持的基本问题，然后将向研究界公开。该网络将通过支持本科生、研究生和博士后的工作来促进科学队伍的发展；一个在互联网上发布的可视化计划将有助于向科学界和更广泛的公众传达黑洞天体物理学的兴奋。

This project will create a Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics Network with major nodes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of California at Berkeley, and Princeton University, to advance the theory of black hole accretion and outflows. Accretion of matter onto black holes is central to many astrophysical and gravitational phenomena, but current theory lacks self-consistent models both for high accretion rate flows where radiation forces are important, and for low accretion rate flows where collisionless plasma effects are important. The network team brings together expertise in high performance computing techniques, astrophysics, and plasma physics in order to address this need. The team will develop a general relativistic, radiation magnetohydrodynamics code to study luminous accreting black holes, and a multi-fluid relativistic magnetohydrodynamics code with anisotropic electron and ion pressures, conduction, viscosity, and radiative heating and cooling to study slowly accreting systems. These new codes will be used to address fundamental questions about the structure and observational appearance of the inner accretion disk as well as the origin and maintenance of the large-scale magnetic fields believed to power relativistic jets, and then will be made publicly available to the research community. The network will contribute to scientific workforce development by supporting the work of undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdocs; and a program of visualizations, released on the internet, will help communicate the excitement of black hole astrophysics to the scientific community and to the broader public.