CAREER: Strong Gravitational and Electromagnetic Fields

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Our universe abounds with exotic objects that push the familiar phenomena of gravity, electricity, and magnetism to their extremes. Neutron stars have magnetic fields billions of times stronger than the strongest terrestrial magnets and drive electric current through space at more than a trillion volts. The gravity of a black hole is so strong that nothing -not even light- can escape its grip. A variety of astronomical mysteries, from fast radio bursts to intergalactic particle jets, are connected to these strong-field conditions. And a variety of new observational facilities, from radio to X-ray to gravitational waves, promise new probes of the intense physics near black holes and neutron stars. These exotic systems hold a perennial fascination with the public and present opportunities for public engagement. The research component of this proposal studies the physics of extreme gravity and electromagnetism, with the aim of discovering new physical processes to explain existing astronomical data and make new observational predictions. The education component leverages these results to catalyze a public conversation about science more generally, via an innovative series of videos to be posted on the video-sharing website YouTube.The PI will perform analytic studies of force-free electrodynamics, the physical theory that governs strong-field plasma near compact objects (black holes and neutron stars). He will investigate stability, turbulence, and the extraction of rotational energy from the compact object. He will search for new exact solutions and general theorems governing the breakdown of the theory. The PI will also study a class of 'extremal' black holes, which are comparatively ill-understood. In astrophysics, extremal means rapidly rotating, and the PI will search for new observational signatures of high-spin black holes. The PI will also study a recently-discovered instability of extremal black holes, aiming to determine the regimes in which it operates as well as its generic physical outcome. The PI will create a series of short videos about science and scientists and disseminate it on the video-sharing website YouTube. The videos will feature the PI's own research, as well as that of other scientists, in a format designed to be fun, casual, and informative. The main goal is to build public familiarity with the process of science and thereby increase public confidence in scientific results.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.