CAREER: Strong Gravitational and Electromagnetic Fields

我们的宇宙中充满了奇异的物体，它们将我们熟悉的重力、电和磁现象推向了极端。中子星的磁场比地球上最强的磁铁强数十亿倍，在太空中驱动的电流超过一万亿伏特。黑洞的引力是如此之强，以至于任何东西——甚至光——都无法逃脱它的控制。从快速射电暴到星系间粒子喷流，各种各样的天文学谜团都与这些强场条件有关。从无线电到x射线再到引力波，各种新的观测设施都有望探测黑洞和中子星附近的强烈物理现象。这些奇特的系统长期吸引着公众，并为公众参与提供了机会。该提案的研究部分研究极端重力和电磁物理，目的是发现新的物理过程来解释现有的天文数据并做出新的观测预测。教育部分利用这些结果，通过在视频分享网站YouTube上发布一系列创新的视频，更广泛地促进公众对科学的讨论。PI将进行无力电动力学的分析研究，这是一种控制致密物体（黑洞和中子星）附近强场等离子体的物理理论。他将研究稳定性，湍流，以及从致密物体中提取旋转能量。他将寻找新的精确解和控制理论崩溃的一般定理。PI还将研究一类“极端”黑洞，这类黑洞相对来说还不为人所知。在天体物理学中，极值意味着快速旋转，PI将寻找高自旋黑洞的新观测特征。PI还将研究最近发现的极端黑洞的不稳定性，旨在确定其运行机制及其一般物理结果。PI将制作一系列关于科学和科学家的短视频，并在视频分享网站YouTube上传播。这些视频将以PI自己的研究以及其他科学家的研究为特色，以一种有趣、休闲和信息丰富的形式设计。主要目标是建立公众对科学过程的熟悉，从而增加公众对科学结果的信心。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。

Our universe abounds with exotic objects that push the familiar phenomena of gravity, electricity, and magnetism to their extremes. Neutron stars have magnetic fields billions of times stronger than the strongest terrestrial magnets and drive electric current through space at more than a trillion volts. The gravity of a black hole is so strong that nothing -not even light- can escape its grip. A variety of astronomical mysteries, from fast radio bursts to intergalactic particle jets, are connected to these strong-field conditions. And a variety of new observational facilities, from radio to X-ray to gravitational waves, promise new probes of the intense physics near black holes and neutron stars. These exotic systems hold a perennial fascination with the public and present opportunities for public engagement. The research component of this proposal studies the physics of extreme gravity and electromagnetism, with the aim of discovering new physical processes to explain existing astronomical data and make new observational predictions. The education component leverages these results to catalyze a public conversation about science more generally, via an innovative series of videos to be posted on the video-sharing website YouTube.The PI will perform analytic studies of force-free electrodynamics, the physical theory that governs strong-field plasma near compact objects (black holes and neutron stars). He will investigate stability, turbulence, and the extraction of rotational energy from the compact object. He will search for new exact solutions and general theorems governing the breakdown of the theory. The PI will also study a class of 'extremal' black holes, which are comparatively ill-understood. In astrophysics, extremal means rapidly rotating, and the PI will search for new observational signatures of high-spin black holes. The PI will also study a recently-discovered instability of extremal black holes, aiming to determine the regimes in which it operates as well as its generic physical outcome. The PI will create a series of short videos about science and scientists and disseminate it on the video-sharing website YouTube. The videos will feature the PI's own research, as well as that of other scientists, in a format designed to be fun, casual, and informative. The main goal is to build public familiarity with the process of science and thereby increase public confidence in scientific results.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.