David Radice, Thesis Supervisor Nitin Samarth, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Gravitational waves Data analysis Black holes Neutron stars
Abstract:
This thesis looks into the prompt-collapse black holes formed from binary neutron star mergers. The analysis is done based on 47 numerical relativity simulations. We fit the (l=2, m=2) and (l=2, m=1) strain data of the gravitational wave to a decaying damped exponential function, based on black-hole perturbation theory. The ratio of the amplitudes A_21/A_22 depends on the parent neutron star mass ratio q and reduced tidal parameter. However, the numerical uncertainty in the numerical simulation is too large to fully quantify this dependency. Next step in this project will be to perform simulations with higher resolution numerical-relativity data to confirm these results. If confirmed, these will be a great way to test the limits of general relativity in the presence of matter with the help of next-generation gravitational-wave detectors.
