Problems in Gravitation

理查德·马兹纳将利用数学分析、观测对比和计算建模等工具，开展引力物理学和相对论的研究。他将应用这些技术来理解广义相对论中描述的大质量物体的可能形态，主要集中在黑洞上。他将研究如何用计算术语来描述这些对象，以及这些对象在交互中的动力学。这项工作的主要部分将集中在发展黑洞相互作用的演化。这些可能是最强的引力源，并将产生强烈的引力波事件。它们锻炼了我们对强引力场的理解，并发展了新的理论概念。它们是一个复杂的计算问题(运算量大，域变量多)，需要特殊的技术，非常仔细的数值处理和非常大的计算资源，因此它们是开发新的计算基础设施的一个很好的领域。它们还可以提供对当前和未来几代引力波探测器所探测到的波形的详细预测。

Richard Matzner will carry out research in gravitational physics andrelativity, utilizing the tools of mathematical analysis, comparison toobservation, and computational modeling. He will apply these techniquesto understanding the possible configurations of massive objects asdescribed in general relativity, concentrating on black holes. He willstudy the way in which these objects can be described in computationalterms, and the dynamics of these objects in interaction. The main part of this work will concentrate on developing evolutions ofblack hole interactions. These are the strongest possible gravitationalsources, and will produce strong gravitational wave events. They are atestbed in which our understanding of strong gravitational fields isexercised, and in which new theoretical concepts are developed. They area difficult computational problem (large operation counts, largenumbers of field variables), and require special techniques, verycareful numerical handling, and very large computational resources.Thus they are an excellent domain to develop new computationalinfrastructure. And they may provide detailed predictions of thewaveforms detected in the current and in future generations ofgravitational wave detectors.