Submission information
Submission Number: 34
Submission ID: 60
Submission UUID: 377d9723-c838-422e-a975-30e95d95fe99
Submission URI: /form/project
Created: Thu, 05/21/2020 - 15:48
Completed: Thu, 05/21/2020 - 15:49
Changed: Wed, 07/29/2020 - 16:40
Remote IP address: 173.48.192.21
Submitted by: Northeast Cyberteam
Language: English
Is draft: No
Webform: Project
| Project Title | Kerr Black Hole Gravitational Lensing |
|---|---|
| Program | Northeast |
| Project Leader | Thomas Kling |
| tkling@bridgew.edu | |
| Mobile Phone | 401 497 5748 |
| Work Phone | 508 531 2895 |
| Mentor(s) | Shaohao Chen |
| Student-facilitator(s) | Lia Troy |
| Mentee(s) | |
| Project Description | Black holes are one of the most interesting predictions of general relativity. One of their most interesting features is that they bend and distort any beams of light that pass them. The recent image of the black hole from April 2019 showed one feature of this distortion of light - the "shadow" of the black hole - which is really the distortion of light that was emitted from the accretion disk around the black hole. This project will further examine how light is distorted near black holes by tracing millions of light ray bundles in this region of highly distorted space-time. --- In general relativity, the Kerr solution represents an isolated, rotating black hole. My recent research has involved tracing light rays near the black hole, and forming images and movies of the wave-fronts of those light rays. Individual light rays are governed by ordinary differential equations (so that integrating one light ray usually corresponds to simultaneously integrating roughly 10 first order ODEs, which I do with self-written C++ code implementing adaptive stepsize ideas. Currently, I organize my code to examine wave-fronts where a group of light rays is emitted from one place with an initially equal distribution at the single emission point. Due to the lensing, this initially equal distribution of rays expanding from one point will spread into an distorted (and unequally distributed) wave front. As a next step, I will investigate the lensing problem from a different angle - specifically, I want to examine all the light rays that reach a given point from an evenly distributed set of sources. This requires additional computational capabilities, as I will need to compute which light rays connect two separate points, which is the equivalent problem of solving for the mappings from one two dimensional space into a second. This mapping is not one to one, and due to the highly non-linear ODEs which generate the map, strong computational (parallelization) methods are required. |
| Project Deliverables | I would like to create a code that effectively transitions my current approach to an MPI / MP format in a sensible way. I feel that once I understand how to split the code effectively, I will be able to continue the project on my own. |
| Project Deliverables | |
| Student Research Computing Facilitator Profile | I am mostly in need of help with writing MPI and MP code. I have reasonable code-writing experience in C++ and codes that operate on single work-stations tracing light rays. An ideal facilitator will have solid mathematics skills (basic knowledge of differential equations, numerical techniques for ODEs and ray shooting), but ideally some experience or interest in learning how to write MPI and MP code. |
| Mentee Research Computing Profile | |
| Student Facilitator Programming Skill Level | |
| Mentee Programming Skill Level | |
| Project Institution | Bridgewater State University |
| Project Address | |
| Anchor Institution | NE-MGHPCC |
| Preferred Start Date | 07/01/2019 |
| Start as soon as possible. | |
| Project Urgency | |
| Expected Project Duration (in months) | |
| Launch Presentation | |
| Launch Presentation Date | |
| Wrap Presentation | |
| Wrap Presentation Date | |
| Project Milestones | |
| Github Contributions | |
| Planned Portal Contributions (if any) | |
| Planned Publications (if any) | |
| What will the student learn? | Student will learn about gravitational lensing and black holes, as well as gain experience in solving problems with MPI / MP. |
| What will the mentee learn? | |
| What will the Cyberteam program learn from this project? | Hopefully, since I am a new faculty member (researcher) using a parallel processing cluster for the first time, this project will assist Cyberteam in understanding how to best mentor new researchers in using their facility. |
| HPC resources needed to complete this project? | This is a trial project that makes relatively light use of CPU nodes but fairly heavy use of GPU nodes for large throughput of calculations on individual light rays. |
| Notes | |
| What is the impact on the development of the principal discipline(s) of the project? | It is anticipated that by July 2020, a fully functioning code will exist that enables a close examination of light rays near rotating (or Kerr) black holes. This will allow for new tests, and new ways to test, gravitational lensing through general relativity approaches. To my knowledge, no other code or research teams are pursuing projects in this particular manner or level of detail. |
| What is the impact on other disciplines? | |
| Is there an impact physical resources that form infrastructure? | |
| Is there an impact on the development of human resources for research computing? | The project has trained an undergraduate student in using CUDA Thrust and Open MP libraries to the point that she has significant experience as project manager. The project has also trained a physics professor in using these resources, allowing that professor to bring new students into this work in the future from his home institution. |
| Is there an impact on institutional resources that form infrastructure? | |
| Is there an impact on information resources that form infrastructure? | By enabling a faculty member at a medium-sized, Masters Comprehensive public university to work with parallel computing resources at the MGHPCC through Boston University, a more full use of existing computational resources was achieved, and infrastructure was shared with researchers that did not have other access to this level of computational capability. |
| Is there an impact on technology transfer? | |
| Is there an impact on society beyond science and technology? | |
| Lessons Learned | |
| Overall results | As of June 2020, a fully developed code has been created in OMP and CUDA /Thrust libraries to examine large numbers of light rays near rotating black holes. In coming months, the code will undergo testing to ensure proper function. After this, science questions will begin to be answered. |