RUI: Next-Generation Numerical Relativity for Future Gravitational-Wave Observatories

该奖项支持相对论和相对论天体物理学的研究，并解决了NSF“宇宙之窗”大理念的优先领域。引力波是以光速穿越宇宙的扭曲时空的涟漪。它们是由宇宙中最灾难性的事件（例如黑洞和中子星碰撞）发射的。今天的引力波天文台给了人类一个全新的认识宇宙的感觉，但它们的灵敏度只够探测到最响亮的引力波。下一代引力波探测器将到达可观测宇宙的边缘，并以极高的保真度观测最响亮的引力波。该奖项将帮助科学家从这些高保真观测中恢复最令人兴奋和令人惊讶的物理学。具体来说，该奖项支持一项研究计划，该计划使用超级计算机计算来模拟合并黑洞的引力波。通过他们在这个项目的参与，本科生和硕士生在加州州立大学，富勒顿，一个西班牙裔服务机构，将发挥重要作用，在引力波天文学，同时学习研究和计算技能，将为他们成功的STEM职业生涯做好准备。PI和学生研究人员将把这项工作的结果整合到一个为期一周的研讨会中;研讨会将向Citrus College（一所当地的西班牙裔社区学院）的学生介绍引力波，高性能计算和本科生研究。该奖项将继续支持加州州立大学，富勒顿的计算引力波研究计划。PI和学生在本科和硕士水平，作为模拟eXtreme时空合作的成员，将发挥关键作用，准备应用数值相对论建模下一代引力波观测。首先，他们将评估频谱爱因斯坦代码（SpEC）的准确性和性能限制，这是一种最先进的数值相对论代码，以确定它可以在多大程度上模拟未来探测器最响亮的观测结果，这些观测结果将具有数千个信噪比（SNR）。其次，他们将探索SpECTRE的潜力，SpECTRE是下一代开源数值相对论代码，可以模拟合并黑洞的高SNR观测。他们将完成对SpECTRE的准确性、效率和缩放的首次评估，同时为SpECTRE首次模拟二元黑洞做出贡献。这项工作产生的高精度模型引力波形将有助于开发改进的解析近似模型，这些模型对于推断引力波源的性质和在最极端条件下测试广义相对论是必要的。这项工作还将揭示下一代技术在模拟合并黑洞方面的潜力，同时为使用它们来模拟黑洞撕裂中子星奠定基础。对这些事件的高保真观测将以前所未有的保真度揭示宇宙致密物质和最强烈扭曲时空的行为，但它们需要具有极大提高精度的模型波形。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports research in relativity and relativistic astrophysics, and it addresses the priority areas of NSF's "Windows on the Universe" Big Idea. Gravitational waves are ripples of warped spacetime that travel through the universe at the speed of light. They are emitted by the most cataclysmic events in the universe, such as colliding black holes and neutron stars. Today's gravitational-wave observatories have given humanity an entirely new sense to learn about the universe, but they are only sensitive enough to detect the loudest gravitational waves. The next generation of gravitational-wave detectors will reach to the edge of the observable universe and will observe the loudest gravitational waves with extremely high fidelity. This award will help scientists recover the most exciting and surprising physics from these high-fidelity observations. Specifically, this award supports a research program that uses supercomputer calculations to model gravitational waves from merging black holes. Through their participation in this project, undergraduate and master's students at California State University, Fullerton, a Hispanic-serving institution, will play important roles in gravitational-wave astronomy while learning research and computational skills that will prepare them for successful STEM careers. The PI and student researchers will integrate results from this work into a week-long workshop; the workshop will introduce students from Citrus College (a local Hispanic-serving community college) to gravitational waves, high-performance computing, and undergraduate research.This award renews support for California State University, Fullerton's computational gravitational-wave research program. The PI and students at the undergraduate and master's level, working as members of the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes collaboration, will play key roles in preparing for the application of numerical-relativity modeling to next-generation gravitational-wave observations. First, they will assess the accuracy and performance limits of the Spectral Einstein Code (SpEC), a state-of-the-art numerical-relativity code, to determine how well it can model future detectors' loudest observations, which will have signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) in the thousands. Second, they will explore the potential for SpECTRE, a next-generation, open-source numerical-relativity code, to model high-SNR observations of merging black holes. They will complete the first assessment of SpECTRE's accuracy, efficiency, and scaling while contributing toward enabling SpECTRE's first simulations of binary black holes. The high-accuracy model gravitational waveforms resulting from this work will help develop improved analytic approximate models necessary for inferring the properties of gravitational-wave sources and for testing general relativity under the most extreme conditions. This work will also reveal the potential of next-generation techniques to model merging black holes while laying a foundation for using them to model black holes tearing apart neutron stars. High-fidelity observations of these events will reveal, with unprecedented fidelity, the behavior of the universe's densest matter and most strongly warped spacetime—but they will require model waveforms with tremendously improved accuracy.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.