Numerical simulations of hairy black holes and boson stars
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics
Abstract
Goal of this PhD course is the modeling of boson stars and hairy black holes as sources of gravitational waves for ground based (LIGO/Virgo) and space-based (LISA) gravitational wave detectors. While the no-hair theorems strongly constrain the possibility for black holes surrounded by single, real scalar fields, recent studies have shown that there exist stationary solutions to the Einstein field equations describing a black hole plus a complex (oscillatory) scalar field. These
solutions connect the well known Kerr solution to pure scalar stars, called boson stars. The specific goal here is to model such configurations in the framework of fully non-linear general relativity using supercomputers and test in particular the stability of this new class of hairy black holes and calculate the gravitational wave signal generated in the inspiral and merger of these objects, including as a limiting case boson stars.
solutions connect the well known Kerr solution to pure scalar stars, called boson stars. The specific goal here is to model such configurations in the framework of fully non-linear general relativity using supercomputers and test in particular the stability of this new class of hairy black holes and calculate the gravitational wave signal generated in the inspiral and merger of these objects, including as a limiting case boson stars.
Organisations
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ST/R504658/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/09/2021 | |||
| 1936371 | Studentship | ST/R504658/1 | 01/10/2017 | 30/04/2021 | Miren Radia |
| Title | GRChombo Numerical Relativity Code |
| Description | GRChombo is a relatively new Numerical Relativity code developed by a collaboration of researchers working in a variety of different areas. It is based on the Chombo library (https://commons.lbl.gov/display/chombo/) for fully-adaptive mesh refinement and is written in C++14 with hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallelism. Whilst GRChombo was primarily developed before I started my PhD, I am now one of the core developers and maintainers of this code and regularly write new features in order to aid my own research and that of other users. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Virtually all of my numerical simulations uses this code. The fully-adaptive mesh refinement enables simulations of physical configurations which would otherwise be infeasible with the many other numerical relativity codes which rely on box-in-box mesh refinement. Since my supervisor uses a completely different code for his simulations, we are able to compare our results in order to be more consistent in their validity. |
| URL | http://www.grchombo.org |
| Description | Discovery Documentary |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Several members of the research group, including me, were filmed as part of a documentary series produced for the Discovery Channel. The series, titled "Universe Unravelled", explores many areas of gravitation and cosmology and is aimed at a general audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019,2020 |
| Description | Kavli-RISE Summer School on Gravitational Waves |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I was part of the local organising committee for this summer school which was aimed at early stage researchers in gravitational waves. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/activities/rise/ |