Studies of Strong-Gravity Binaries and Their Gravitational Waves

该奖项将支持和扩展该小组正在进行的关于广义相对论中二元系统动力学的研究，以及引力波观测天文学的研究。 这项工作将进一步加深我们对双星系统中黑洞如何相互作用的理解，并将开发工具来理解现在正在使用LIGO引力波探测器测量的信号，并使用在地球表面上线的姐妹仪器和计划中的天基探测器。特别是，该小组将继续研究被称为“有效单体”（EOB）的广义相对论的近似值，该近似值简化了用于描述黑洞事件视界的二元系统和其他微扰框架的建模。这些技术补充了寻找爱因斯坦方程的完整数值解时所使用的技术。他们将继续产生引力波信号的声化，这是一种已被证明有力地说明引力波如何编码源信息的工具。 此外，PI还将制作探索黑洞轨道的在线工具，并附带视频，展示产生有趣引力波信号的轨道的强场性质。在这段时间内将进行的具体项目将是使用黑洞微扰理论的研究和使用LIGO引力波探测器支持天文学的研究的混合。 PI的团队将与阿尔伯特爱因斯坦研究所的同事合作，使用黑洞微扰理论来修改和扩展非常成功的EOB方法，以实现紧凑的二元动力学。 到目前为止，这个计划的工作已经做了很多工作来澄清与黑洞事件视界的相互作用如何影响致密双星的演化。 目前正在进行的工作是探测自旋轨道严重失调的轨道，为在更大的天体物理学相关轨道系列上使用EOB框架奠定基础。 该小组还将使用黑洞微扰理论作为理解自作用力的基础，计算物体如何使其运动的时空变形，以及这种变形如何作用于物体的运动。 在引力波天文学领域，他们已经开始系统地研究两个黑洞最终合并时黑洞模式是如何被激发的。 这种分析将使我们能够理解黑洞合并所激发的模式混合如何取决于合并黑洞的碰撞几何和特性。 分析还将使我们能够从我们测量的引力波中了解更多关于合并黑洞的特征。

This award will support and extend this group's ongoing research on the dynamics of binary systems in general relativity, and research on astronomy with gravitational wave observations. This work will further our understanding of how black holes in binary systems interact with one another, and will develop tools for understanding the signals that are now being measured using the LIGO gravitational-wave detectors, and using sister instruments coming on line on the Earth's surface and planned space-based detectors. In particular, this group will continue work on an approximation to General Relativity known as "effective one body" (EOB) that simplifies the modeling of binary systems and other perturbative frameworks used to describe the black hole event horizon. These techniques complement those used when looking for full numerical solutions of the Einstein equations. They will continue to produce sonifications of gravitational wave signals, a tool which has proven to powerfully illustrate how gravitational waves encode source information. Additionally, the PI will make online tools to explore black hole orbits, with accompanying videos illustrating the strong-field nature of orbits which produce interesting gravitational-wave signals.The specific projects that will be pursued in this time frame will be a mix of studies using black hole perturbation theory, and studies in support of astronomy with the LIGO gravitational wave detectors. The PI's group will use black hole perturbation theory in collaboration with colleagues at the Albert Einstein Institute to revise and extend the very successful EOB approach to compact binary dynamics. Work in this program so far has done much to clarify how interactions with a black hole's event horizon affect the evolution of compact binaries. Ongoing work is now probing orbits with substantial spin-orbit misalignment, laying the groundwork for using the EOB framework on a larger family of astrophysically relevant orbits. The group will also use black hole perturbation theory as the foundation for understanding self forces, computing how a body deforms the spacetime in which it moves and how that deformation acts back upon the body's motion. In the domain of gravitational wave astronomy, they have begun a systematic investigation into how black hole modes are excited in the final merger of two black holes. This analysis will allow us to understand how the mixture of modes excited by black holes mergers depends upon the collision geometry and characteristics of the merging black holes. The analysis will also make it possible to learn more about the characteristics of the merging black holes from the gravitational waves that we measure.