Compact Objects and Gravitational Radiation

阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦著名的广义相对论预测并解释了引力在我们宇宙中的作用。它最著名的两个预言是引力波和黑洞，引力波基本上是引力的信息载体，它以辐射的形式传播，黑洞是宇宙中最紧凑的物体。2015年，NSF资助的LIGO观测到一个宇宙，其行为与爱因斯坦的理论一致，至少在探测器的当前灵敏度下是如此。从那时起，已经观测到了90个来自致密物体（即黑洞和中子星）合并的事件，对宇宙的理解在这些引力波观测的推动下进入了一个新时代。为了实现他们的承诺，科学家必须确定引力波的来源并提取有关该来源的信息，这需要爱因斯坦方程的解。该奖项致力于通过使用数值相对论来实现引力波的承诺，以提供爱因斯坦对波形的理论预测。该奖项还支持教育和培训。研究人员将参加德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校物理系新开发的美国物理学会桥梁项目，并将继续利用引力波探测所产生的兴奋，通过提供引力波事件的电影，在YouTube网站上向所有人提供，该奖项支持两项与解释引力波有关的科学努力。首先是继续玛雅合作银行的二元黑洞模拟，这将扩大到涵盖源的物理参数在日益敏感的探测器所需的精度。重点将放在模拟涉及偏心和高度进动的二进制文件。这项工作还将涉及一个新的模拟中子星星-黑洞合并的目录。受未来引力波探测器将带来的改进的推动，两个目录中的工作将特别关注评估误差对参数估计的影响，以及寻找优化运行位置的方法。第二个认识到，随着引力波探测器灵敏度的提高，它们将揭示更多的奇异信号。解释这些信号需要一个快速、可靠和鲁棒的参数估计算法，该算法可用于最先进的波形。PI的团队将利用数值相对论和引力波参数估计方面的内部专家团队，通过数值相对论模拟跟踪不寻常的引力波事件，研究新参数的可测量性，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Albert Einstein's famous Theory of General Relativity predicts and explains the role of gravity in our universe. Two of its most famous predictions are gravitational waves, basically message carriers for gravity that travel as radiation, and black holes, the most compact objects in the universe. In 2015, the NSF-funded LIGO observed a universe that behaved consistent with Einstein's theory, at least at the current sensitivity of the detectors. Since then, 90 events have been observed from the coalescence of compact objects, namely black holes and neutron stars, and the understanding of the universe has entered a new era driven by these gravitational-wave observations. To realize their promise, scientists must identify the source of the gravitational wave and extract information about that source, which requires solutions to Einstein's equations. This award works toward realizing the promise of gravitational waves by using numerical relativity to provide Einstein's theoretical predictions of the waveforms. This award also supports education and training. The investigators will participate in a newly developed American Physical Society Bridge program at the Department of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin and will continue to capitalize on the excitement generated by the detections of gravitational waves by providing movies of gravitational wave events made available to all on the YouTube site, Maya Collaboration.The award supports two scientific endeavors related to the interpretation of gravitational waves. First is the continuation of the Maya Collaboration's bank of binary black hole simulations, which will be expanded to cover the physical parameters of the sources at the accuracy required by increasingly sensitive detectors. The focus will be on simulations involving eccentric and highly precessing binaries. The effort will also involve a new catalog of simulations of neutron star -- black hole mergers. Motivated by the improvements that future gravitational wave detectors will bring, the work in both catalogues will pay particular attention to assessing the impact of errors on the parameter estimation as well as finding ways to optimize the placement of runs. The second recognizes that as the gravitational wave detectors increase in sensitivity, they will reveal more exotic signals. Interpreting these signals requires a fast, reliable, and robust parameter estimation algorithm that can be used with state-of-the-art waveforms. Using an in-house team of experts in numerical relativity and gravitational wave parameter estimation, the PI's team will follow-up unusual gravitational wave events with numerical relativity simulations, investigate the measurability of new parameters, and assess the waveform systematics resulting from waveform models and numerical relativity errors.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.