Johnny Tsao Final Defense
Jun
11
2026
Jun
11
2026
Abstract
Numerical relativity combines general relativity with relativistic hydrodynamics to model compact objects such as black holes and neutron stars. Using MAYA, a local version of the Einstein Toolkit, this work investigates the effects of neutron star compactness and orbital eccentricity on neutron star–black hole mergers, gravitational-wave signals, and matter ejection. In addition to these applications, radiation-fluid and neutrino-transport techniques are developed to incorporate radiation physics into numerical relativity. Radiation fluids are modeled as self-gravitating fluids to study dynamical instability of photon stars, and neutrino transport is explored through moment-based methods by adapting existing M1 algorithms to the infrastructure-agnostic GRHayL library.
Location
PMA 9.222 & Zoom (https://utexas.zoom.us/j/88132279347?pwd=YvX1i6GnmagM8BoJvEsQGSWLOlVNAM.1)