WoU-MMA: Aspects of Numerical Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics

该奖项支持相对论和相对论天体物理学的研究，它解决了NSF“宇宙之窗”大构想的优先领域。双中子星并合的引力波（GW）事件是多信使天文学和天体物理学（MMA）研究的重要来源。由于已经探测到一个这样的事件（GW170817），并且预计在明年LIGO的下一次观测运行中还会有几个这样的事件，现代引力理论和MMA的一个重要问题是将所有可用的信息渠道与系统中探测到的潜在物理联系起来。具体问题包括：什么是致密物质状态方程（EoS）？何时以及如何通过合并NS产生瞬态？NS-NS合并的一般结果是什么？这些问题只能通过对合并和合并后的数值相对论（NR）模拟的新见解来完全回答，这需要考虑与热致密物质、磁场和弱相互作用物理相关的所有相关（小规模）微物理。该奖项将在NS-NS合并的小规模物理建模方面取得重大进展。该项目还将制作数值模拟的动画和电影，以供公众宣传。这些将通过专门的网页、社交媒体渠道提供给教育工作者和公众。此外，该项目支持的研究生和本科生将接受广泛的专业和教育培训。该奖项将推动我们对现实的小规模微物理学对EM对应物的生产、相对论流出发射以及NS-NS合并结果的影响的理解。这将使一类新型NR模拟能够显著提高对GW事件及其综合格斗方面的预测能力。对具有强引力磁场的相对论性流体中的小尺度耗散效应（粘度和导热性）进行建模，也是引力、核物理和天体物理学界的基本兴趣所在。本项目将开发一个新的网络基础设施，一个耗散广义相对论磁流体动力学与动态重力耦合的公共模拟代码，并研究其在NS-NS合并后阶段的应用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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 wave (GW) events of binary neutron star (NS) mergers are exciting sources for multi-messenger astronomy and astrophysics (MMA). With one such event (GW170817) already detected and several more anticipated over the next observing run of LIGO next year, one of the important questions of modern gravitational theory and MMA is to connect all the available channels of information to the underlying physics probed in the system. Specific questions include: What is the dense matter equation of state (EoS)? When and how are transients produced by merging NS? What is the general outcome of a NS-NS merger? Those can only be fully answered by novel insights from numerical relativity (NR) simulations of the merger and post-merger, which need to consider all the relevant (small-scale) microphysics associated with hot dense matter, magnetic fields, and weak-interaction physics. This award will make significant advances in the modeling of small-scale physics in NS-NS mergers. This project will also produce animations and movies of numerical simulations for public outreach. These will be made available to educators and the public via dedicated web pages, social media channels. In addition, graduate and undergraduate students supported by this project will receive extensive professional and educational training. This award will push the frontier in our understanding of the impact of realistic small-scale microphysics on the production of EM counterparts, relativistic outflow launching, and the outcome of NS-NS mergers. This will enable a novel class of NR simulations with significantly improved predictive power for the interpretation of GW events and their MMA aspects. Modeling small-scale dissipative effects (viscosities and heat conductivity) in relativistic fluids with magnetic fields in strong gravity, is also of fundamental interest to the gravitational, nuclear, and astrophysics communities. This project will develop a new cyberinfrastructure, a public simulation code for dissipative general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics coupled with dynamic gravity, and study its applications to the post-merger stage of NS-NS coalescence.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.