Einstein’s equations of General Relativity are really difficult to solve; especially if we are interested in highly complex physical scenarios such as a binary black hole mergers, neutron stars, supernova explosions, or the formation of the large scale structure in the late Universe. Numerical Relativity is a clever computational method that allows us to solve Einstein’s equations directly instead of making simplifying approximations for the physics at hand. This relatively new computational advancement is one of the ingredients we needed to detect gravitational waves for the first time, and its potential applications are growing as both our software and supercomputers improve.
Supervisor Profiles & Available Research Projects
Dr Hayley Macpherson
- Gravitational lensing of galaxies and the Cosmic Microwave Background with numerical relativity
- Study of synthetic observables with general relativistic ray tracing
- Software development of numerical relativity cosmological simulations
The fabric of space-time is distorted by the large-scale structure in the Universe. This surface shows the curved space in a numerical relativity cosmological simulation, where galaxies would live in the light regions and the dark regions are void of matter. This curvature determines the path light takes on its way to our telescopes and can distort the images we observe (via Gravitational Lensing), and also how space itself expands over time.
Courtesy: H J Macpherson