The L3 laser interferometer space antenna (\lisa", an ESA-NASA collaborative mission) may provide our RST detections of gravitational waves (GWS) from massive binary black holes (mbbhs). Unlike…

This federal contract award provides $95,846.66 in funding to the West Virginia University Research Corporation, a subsidiary of West Virginia University, to collaborate with researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on developing a software framework for modeling the interactions between gravitational waves, plasma flows, and electromagnetic radiation around merging massive binary black holes. This work supports the planned Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, a joint effort between ESA and NASA to detect gravitational waves from these types of black hole mergers, which may produce detectable electromagnetic counterparts. The goal is to produce the first self-consistent theoretical predictions of the combined gravitational wave and electromagnetic signatures from these events, which could yield new insights into black hole formation and their environmental impacts. The contract has no set-aside designation and runs through February 2021.

The L3 laser interferometer space antenna (\lisa", an ESA-NASA collaborative mission) may provide our RST detections of gravitational waves (GWS) from massive binary black holes (mbbhs). Unlike stellar-mass binary black holes observed by ligo/virgo, mbbhs are thought to interact with the surrounding plasma and generate potentially detectable electromagnetic (EM) emission in coincidence with the GWS. A coincident GW and EM detection from mbbhs may yield unprecedented insights into how black holes form and impact their environments. However, unless a consistent theoretical framework can be built connecting observed EM and GW signals to the underlying physical processes generating them, the science product from such hard-fought observations may be tragically underwhelming. Such a theoretical framework does not yet exist. While IT is possible to separately model plasma OWS and EM particle (photon) motion near black holes with two separate pieces of software, a self-consistent model incorporating photon{plasma interactions would require that the two pieces of software be merged into one. West virginia university subcontract PI z. Etienne is a computational astrophysicist who authored and maintains illinoisgrmhd, a supercomputer-grade piece of software capable of fully general relativistic computational modeling of magnetized plasma OWS around black holes. J. Schnittman, at NASA gsfc, authored and maintains pandurata, software that tracks photons in black hole spacetimes. This proposal provides funding that will enable etienne to continue his work with schnittman to merge illinoisgrmhd and pandurata into a piece of software capable of modeling photon{plasma interactions in a fully self-consistent way, and|in continued collaboration with gsfc astrophysicists j. Baker and b. Kelly|produce the RST self-consistent theoretical predictions of coincident GW and EM signals from mbbh mergers. We adopt a systematic approach whereby state-of-the-art theoretical predictions can be produced while the software merger is in progress.