HYDRA: an HPC facility for Pulsar Astrophysics

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

We request funds for the acquisition of a powerful supercomputer in order to help in the search for the theory of gravity that describes the evolution of the Universe as well as the movement of planets. So far, Einstein's theory of general relativity (GR) has passed all observational tests, but recent results in cosmology and the incompatibility of GR with quantum mechanics suggest that GR may fail to describe the gravitational interaction of the macroscopic world under some extreme conditions. In an attempt to determine these conditions, ever more stringent tests of GR need to be conducted, and the requested computing is capable of finding the corresponding cosmic laboratories: The requested computing power is required to search survey data obtained by the Lovell telescope and others of the world's largest radio-telescopes for radio pulsars. Pulsars are rotating neutron stars emitting radio beams along their magnetic axes and hence act like a cosmic lighthouses that sweep beams of radio light through the Universe as they rotate. A pulsar is therefore a cosmic clock which sends us its ``ticks'' with a regularity that in many cases rivals that of the best atomic clocks on Earth, as the pulsar is essentially a massive flywheel in empty space. We can use these clocks to put Einstein's theory and other theories of gravity to the test by finding them in binary systems with massive companions such as other neutron stars or black holes, and by studying how these clocks move in the 'space-time' distorted by a massive companion. The requested computing facility will be capable of finding the most extreme binary systems yet known, including classes of potentially existing pulsar - black hole systems -- the ultimate laboratories for gravitational physics.