Title : The transient universe: challenges in mathematical physics
Abstract :
Observational astronomy shows an abundance of transient sources,
from supernovae to gamma-ray bursts and active galactic nuclei (AGN)
including quasars and blazars. Future observations may reveal mirror
images in
gravitational waves with LIGO (US), Virgo (France-Italy) and the
planned LISA spacebased mission. Based on a review of current
observations,
transients may be teaching us just the kind of physics that is far
beyond what
we study in the laboratory (including the LHC), such as the creation
of
ultra-high energy cosmic rays (recently associated with AGN by the
Pierre Auger
collaboration), bursts of gravitational waves from black hole
mergers, the creation of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy in black hole
spin-down, and
the formation of ultra-relativistic jets. Astrophysical transients
thus
define some first-principle problems in mathematical physics, such as
modeling the interaction of matter with spinning black holes and
efficient
numerical methods for the evolution of black hole spacetimes in the
complex plane.
The results are of practical use to searches for gravitational
radiation by
LIGO-Virgo and LISA.
