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New Insights on Binary Black Holes

URI researchers make extensive use of the Unity Cluster housed at MGHPCC in their work relating to the coalescence of binary black hole systems using perturbation theory and estimation of the properties of the emitted gravitational radiation.

Using advanced computer simulations, Gaurav Khanna with postdoc Tousif Islam and others studied how two orbiting black holes merge, focusing on a key aspect of Einstein's theory of relativity: the "late-time tail" behavior in the gravitational waves they produce. The pair found that as the black holes' orbits become more elongated, these late-time signals become stronger. The way these signals decay over time follows a specific pattern we expected. In the course of their work, the researchers also created a free Python tool called "gwtails" to analyze this data and have shared some of their results so others can verify our findings.

Gaurav Khanna
Professor in the Department of Physics and the Director of Research Computing at URI

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