Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

1-1-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D. in Physics

First Advisor

Leo Stein

Second Advisor

Luca Bombelli

Third Advisor

Anuradha Gupta

School

University of Mississippi

Relational Format

dissertation/thesis

Abstract

In a matter of a hundred years, we have come from the time when Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves to today, where multiple detections of gravitational waves in a week are not surprising. We are headed towards a future where, with advanced detectors, not only will the frequency of gravitational wave events increase even higher, but we will also discover new gravitational wave sources. Numerical Relativity is catching up to this challenge, and we now have dozens of independent NR codes and multiple gravitational waveform catalogues. As NR codes continue to improve, it is essential to compare their results with one another. Here, we compare gravitational waveform catalogues generated from different NR codes. We also explore a new data-driven approach for a gravitational waveform inversion strategy that discovers models describing orbital dynamics of binary black hole systems. Finally, we have built an interactive website as a pedagogical tool to teach about gravitational wave physics. This website allows users to gain insight into how gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger depend on the underlying parameters of the black holes.

Available for download on Saturday, November 22, 2025

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