Using the Einstein Toolkit and the BlueWaters supercomputer we are assembling a catalog of black hole collision simulations. These simulations model the inspiral and merger of black hole binaries of different mass ratios, with orbits ranging from circular to highly eccentric. This catalog will allow us to explore the extreme physics of colliding black holes, and to more accurately model the gravitational waves these collisions produce, allowing them to be detected by gravitational wave detectors like LIGO.
Team Members
 | Gabrielle Allen Professor, Astronomy Research Professor, Computer Science Senior Research Scientist, NCSA Faculty Affiliate, Computational Science & Engineering Associate Dean of Research, College of Education gdallen@illinois.edu |
 | Zhuo Chen Undergraduate Student Physics zhuoc3@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta Currently coding for detection of merging black holes for LISA |
 | Victoria Colthurst Undergraduate Student Computer Engineering vrc2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta I am working on the design and use of neural network models to detect and characterize electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave sources in the Dark Energy Survey, and on the use of deep learning at scale for real-time transient identification with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. |
 | Arnav Das Undergraduate Student Electrical and Computer Engineering arnavmd2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta My project is to develop a deep learning algorithm to estimate the spin and the mass ratio of a binary black hole system. |
 | Anushri Gupta Undergraduate Student Astronomy anushri2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Eliu Huerta I worked on calculating and analyzing SMBBH gravitational wave parameters, primarily the energy flux, and am currently moving into training neural networks to identify gravitational wave signatures. |
 | Arjun Gupta Undergraduate Student Electrical and Computer Engineering Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta and Dr. Zhizhen Zhao Currently working on denoising gravitational waves using deep learning. |
 | Roland Haas Senior Research Programmer, NCSA rhaas@illinois.edu (217) 300-4228 Numerical relativity and self-force calculations. |
 | Sarah Habib Undergraduate Student Physics sarahmh2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta Currently working on mapping post-Newtonian and numerical simulations of binary black holes. |
 | A. Miguel Holgado Graduate Student, Astronomy holgado2@illinois.edu |
 | Rachneet Kaur Graduate Student Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta Currently working with Eliu Huerta on applications of deep learning in Supernova classification problem. |
 | Asad Khan Graduate Student Physics khan74@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta I am using Deep learning techniques to study Multimessenger Astrophysics. |
 | Yufeng Luo Undergraduate Student Physics, CS + Astro luo34@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Roland Haas I am working on DataVault, to store and analyze the NR simulation waveforms. |
 | Charalampos Markakis Senior Research Fellow, NCSA markakis@illinois.edu |
 | Michael O'Boyle Graduate Student Physics moboyle2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Charalampos Markakis I study implicit numerical integration schemes and their application to the wave equation in curved spacetime. |
 | Rohan Baskar Prabhakar rbp3@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta and Dr. Aaron Saxton Currently working on Hyper-parameter Optimization of Deep Learning Models. |
 | Adam Rebei High School Student University of Illinois Laboratory High School arebei2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta Currently working on numerical modeling of black hole collisions in dense stellar environments using the Einstein Toolkit in the Blue Waters supercomputer. Scientific data analyses of numerical relativity waveforms to shed light on what we can learn from gravitational wave observations of black holes that collide in globular clusters and galactic nuclei. |
 | Paul Ricker Professor, Astronomy Faculty Affiliate, NCSA pmricker@illinois.edu |
 | Shawn Rosofsky Graduate Student Physics shawngr2@illinois.edu |
 | Edward Seidel Grainer Professor, Physics Professor, Astronomy Senior Research Scientist, NCSA VPEDI, Illinois System eseidel@uillinois.edu |
 | Hongyu Shen Graduate Student Electrical and Computer Engineering hongyu2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta and Dr. Zhizhen Zhao Currently working on the application of deep learning for MMA. E.g. parameter estimation of noisy gravitational waves, gravitational waves denoising, glitch classification, scaling training on HPC with TensorFlow, etc. |
 | Navid Tajkhorshid Undergraduate Student navidt@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta My primary job is to run and extract simulations from the Blue Waters Supercomputer. |
 | Bing-Jyun Tsao Undergraduate Student Physics btsao2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Charalampos Markakis I am working on neutron star simulations with numerical relativity. |
 | Sibo Wang Graduate Student Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences sibow2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta (in NCSA Grav group) and Dr. Kaiyu Guan (current) I am currently a graduate student working on satellite-derived crop modeling and forecasting. As an extension to my undergraduate work with the NCSA Gravity Group, I also work with Dr. Huerta on various applications of deep learning in astronomy. |
 | William Wei Graduate Student Physics weiw2@illinois.edu Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta I am interested in time series denoising and forecasting, signal detection and parameter estimation, image classification and object detection. I use statistical learning, among others, in my research. |
 | Mike Yeh Graduate Student stringtron@gmail.com Mentor/Advisor: Dr. Eliu Huerta and Dr. Zhizhen Zhao Currently working on sky localization with 3,4,5 detectors. |
 | Zhizhen Zhao Assistant Professor, ECE Faculty Affiliate, NCSA zhizhenz@illinois.edu |