Prize Talk: Nicholas Metropolis Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Work in Computational Physics: Numerical relativity, gravitational waves, and fundamental physics with charged black holes

ORAL · Invited

Abstract

As the observational capabilities of gravitational-wave detectors and telescopes grow, so does the need for more accurate models of the high-energy universe. In this talk, I will introduce the field of numerical relativity, discipline that develops and applies computational techniques to solve the equations of general relativity. I will present my efforts to advance the field to deepen our understanding of strongly gravitating systems. I will discuss new developments in the study of the non-linear interaction between charged black holes and the interplay between extreme electromagnetic and gravitational fields. I will present the first constraints on black-hole charge and specific exotic astrophysical theories using the gravitational wave event GW150914. Then, I will analyze the result of a series of computer experiments to probe foundational ideas in general relativity and high-energy physics.

* This work was supported by NSF Grant PHY-1912619 to the University of Arizona, a Frontera Fellowship by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), and NASA Grant 80NSSC20K1542. Frontera is founded by NSF grant OAC-1818253. Computational resources were provided by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) under grant number TG-PHY190020. XSEDE is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant No.\ ACI-1548562. Part of this work was conducted at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) and at the Centro de Ciencias de Benasque. KITP is partially supported by the NSF grant No.\ PHY-1748958, and my visit to Benasque was partially supported by NSF grant No.\ NSF-1759835 and a grant from the Theoretical Astrophysical Program (TAP) at the University of Arizona. Simulations were partially performed on Stampede2, Frontera, and Expanse, respectively funded by the NSF through awards ACI-1540931, OAC-1818253, OAC-1928224. Calculations were also performed on NASA's Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facilities. This research was enabled by the Einstein Toolkit, which was supported by NSF OAC awards 1550551, 1550461, 1550436, 1550514, 2004157, 2004044, 2004311, 2004879, 2003893.

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Publication: G. Bozzola, V. Paschalidis. "Initial data for general relativistic simulations of multiple electrically charged black holes with linear and angular momenta." 2019, PRD 99, 10, 104044
G. Bozzola, V. Paschalidis. "General relativistic simulations of the quasi-circular inspiral and merger of charged black holes: GW150914 and fundamental physics implications." 2021, PRL 126, 041103
G. Bozzola. "kuibit: Analyzing Einstein Toolkit simulations with Python." 2021, JOSS 60(6), 3099
G. Bozzola, V. Paschalidis. "Numerical-relativity simulations of the quasi-circular inspiral and merger of non-spinning, charged black holes: methods and comparison with approximate approaches." 2021, PRD 104, 4, 044004
G. Bozzola. "Does Charge Matter in High-Energy Collisions of Black Holes?" 2022, PRL 128, 4, 071101
G. Bozzola, C. Chan, V. Paschalidis. "Black Hole Physics and Computer Graphics." 2022, CISE 24, 2
R. Luna, G. Bozzola, V. Cardoso, V. Paschalidis, M. Zilhão, "Kicks in charged black hole binaries." 2022, PRD 106, 8, 084017.
G. Bozzola, V. Paschalidis. "Can quasi-circular mergers of charged black holes produce extremal black holes?". 2023, PRD 108, 064010.

Presenters

  • Gabriele Bozzola

    University of Arizona

Authors

  • Gabriele Bozzola

    University of Arizona