Yr Athro Mark Hannam

: Ar gael fel goruchwyliwr ôl-raddedig

Timau a rolau for Mark Hannam

Pennaeth Sefydliad Archwilio Disgyrchiant
Ysgol Ffiseg a Seryddiaeth

I study black holes and gravitational waves. Black holes are the most extreme objects in the universe (that we know of!), and gravitational waves are the opposite: they are so weak that they can only be detected with the most sensitive instruments that humans have ever built; when they were measured for the first time in 2015, it was one hundred years after Einstein first prediced them. Those signals were produced by black holes colliding with each other. My research has focussed on understanding and modelling the gravitational-wave signals from just such events, and the models we devevlop are used to measure the properties of those events -- how massive were the black holes, how fast were they spinning, and where were they in the universe? These measurements are filling in details in our understanding of how black holes form, and, in turn, about the past, present and future of our universe.

Date
Type

2011

Hild, S. et al., 2011. Sensitivity studies for third-generation gravitational wave observatories. Classical and Quantum Gravity 28 (9) 094013. (10.1088/0264-9381/28/9/094013)
Ajith, P. et al., 2011. Inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms for black-hole binaries with nonprecessing spins. Physical Review Letters 106 (24) 241101. (10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.241101)
Hannam, M. and Hawke, I. 2011. Numerical relativity simulations in the era of the Einstein Telescope. General Relativity and Gravitation 43 (2), pp.465-483. (10.1007/s10714-010-1008-2)
Sathyaprakash, B. S. et al. 2011. Scientific potential of Einstein Telescope. Presented at: Rencontres de Moriond, Gravitational Waves and Experimental Gravity La Thuile, Italy 3-10 March 2012. Published in: Auge, E. , Dumarchez, J. and Tran Thanh Van, J. eds. Proceedings of the 47th Rencontres de Moriond, Gravitational Waves and Experimental Gravity, La Thuile, Italy, 3-10 March 2012. Vietnam: The Gioi Publishers
Schmidt, P. et al. 2011. Tracking the precession of compact binaries from their gravitational-wave signal. Physical Review D 84 (2) 024046. (10.1103/PhysRevD.84.024046)

2010

Hannam, M. et al. 2010. Length requirements for numerical-relativity waveforms. Physical Review D 82 (12) 124052. (10.1103/PhysRevD.82.124052)
Hannam, M. et al. 2010. Simulations of black-hole binaries with unequal masses or nonprecessing spins: Accuracy, physical properties, and comparison with post-Newtonian results. Physical Review D 82 (12) 124008. (10.1103/PhysRevD.82.124008)
Santamarıa, L. et al., 2010. Matching post-Newtonian and numerical relativity waveforms: Systematic errors and a new phenomenological model for nonprecessing black hole binaries. Physical Review D 82 (6) 064016. (10.1103/PhysRevD.82.064016)
Santamaría, L. et al., 2010. Matching post-Newtonian and numerical relativity waveforms: Systematic errors and a new phenomenological model for nonprecessing black hole binaries. Physical Review D 82 (6) 064016. (10.1103/PhysRevD.82.064016)

2009

Hannam, M. , Husa, S. and Murchadha, N. Ó. 2009. Bowen-York trumpet data and black-hole simulations. Physical Review D 80 (12) 124007. (10.1103/PhysRevD.80.124007)
Ohme, F. et al., 2009. Stationary hyperboloidal slicings with evolved gauge conditions. Classical and Quantum Gravity 26 (17) 175014. (10.1088/0264-9381/26/17/175014)
Hannam, M. 2009. Status of black-hole-binary simulations for gravitational-wave detection. Classical and Quantum Gravity 26 (11) 114001. (10.1088/0264-9381/26/11/114001)
Hannam, M. et al. 2009. Samurai project: Verifying the consistency of black-hole-binary waveforms for gravitational-wave detection. Physical Review D 79 (8) 084025. (10.1103/PhysRevD.79.084025)

2008

Hannam, M. et al. 2008. Comparison between numerical-relativity and post-Newtonian waveforms from spinning binaries: The orbital hang-up case. Physical Review D 78 (10) 104007. (10.1103/PhysRevD.78.104007)
Hannam, M. et al. 2008. Wormholes and trumpets: Schwarzschild spacetime for the moving-puncture generation. Physical Review D 78 (6) 064020. (10.1103/PhysRevD.78.064020)
Gopakumar, A. et al., 2008. Comparison between numerical relativity and a new class of post-Newtonian gravitational-wave phase evolutions: The nonspinning equal-mass case. Physical Review D 78 (6) 064026. (10.1103/PhysRevD.78.064026)
Damour, T. et al., 2008. Accurate effective-one-body waveforms of inspiralling and coalescing black-hole binaries. Physical Review D 78 (4) 044039. (10.1103/PhysRevD.78.044039)
Ajith, P. et al., 2008. Template bank for gravitational waveforms from coalescing binary black holes: Nonspinning binaries. Physical Review D 77 (10) 104017. (10.1103/PhysRevD.77.104017)
Husa, S. et al., 2008. Reducing phase error in long numerical binary black hole evolutions with sixth-order finite differencing. Classical and Quantum Gravity 25 (10) 105006. (10.1088/0264-9381/25/10/105006)
Babak, S. et al., 2008. Resolving Super Massive Black Holes with LISA. ArXiv e-prints
Brügmann, B. et al., 2008. Calibration of moving puncture simulations. Physical Review. D, Particles and Fields 77 (2) 024027. (10.1103/PhysRevD.77.024027)
Brügmann, B. et al., 2008. Exploring black hole superkicks. Physical Review. D, Particles and Fields 77 (12) 124047. (10.1103/PhysRevD.77.124047)
Hannam, M. et al. 2008. Where post-Newtonian and numerical-relativity waveforms meet. Physical Review. D, Particles and Fields 77 (4) 044020. (10.1103/PhysRevD.77.044020)
Husa, S. et al., 2008. Reducing eccentricity in black-hole binary evolutions with initial parameters from post-Newtonian inspiral. Physical Review D 77 (4) 044037. (10.1103/PhysRevD.77.044037)
Sperhake, U. et al., 2008. Head-on collisions of different initial data. Presented at: 11th Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity Berlin, Germany 23-29 July 2006. Published in: Kleinert, H. and Jantzen, R. T. eds. The 11th Marcel Grossmann Meeting: On Recent Developments in Theoretical and Experimental General Relativity, Gravitation and Relativistic Field Theories, Proceedings of the MG11 Meeting, Part 1, Berline, Germany, 23-29 July 2006. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. , pp.1612-1614. (10.1142/9789812834300_0210)

2007

González, J. A. et al., 2007. Supermassive recoil velocities for binary black-hole mergers with antialigned spins. Physical Review Letters 98 (23) 231101. (10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.231101)
Ajith, P. et al., 2007. A phenomenological template family for black-hole coalescence waveforms. Classical and Quantum Gravity 24 (19) S689. (10.1088/0264-9381/24/19/S31)
Ajith, P. et al., 2007. Data formats for numerical relativity waves. ArXiv e-prints 0709 , pp.93.
Berti, E. et al., 2007. Inspiral, merger, and ringdown of unequal mass black hole binaries: A multipolar analysis. Physical Review D 76 (6) 064034. (10.1103/PhysRevD.76.064034)
González, J. A. et al., 2007. Maximum kick from nonspinning black-hole binary inspiral. Physical Review Letters 98 (9) 091101. (10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.091101)
Hannam, M. et al. 2007. Beyond the Bowen-York extrinsic curvature for spinning black holes. Classical and Quantum Gravity 24 (12), pp.S15-S24. (10.1088/0264-9381/24/12/S02)
Hannam, M. et al. 2007. Where do moving punctures go?. Journal of Physics. Conference Series 66 012047. (10.1088/1742-6596/66/1/012047)
Hannam, M. et al. 2007. Geometry and Regularity of Moving Punctures. Physical Review Letters 99 (24) 241102. (10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.241102)
Marronetti, P. et al., 2007. Binary black holes on a budget: simulations using workstations. Classical and Quantum Gravity 24 (12) S43. (10.1088/0264-9381/24/12/S05)

2006

Campanelli, M. et al., 2006. Relativistic three-body effects in black hole coalescence. Physical Review D 74 (8) 087503. (10.1103/PhysRevD.74.087503)

2005

Hannam, M. 2005. Quasicircular orbits of conformal thin-sandwich puncture binary black holes. Physical Review D 72 (4) 044025. (10.1103/PhysRevD.72.044025)
Hannam, M. D. and Cook, G. B. 2005. Conformal thin-sandwich puncture initial data for boosted black holes. Physical Review D 71 (8) 084023. (10.1103/PhysRevD.71.084023)

2003

Hannam, M. et al. 2003. Can a combination of the conformal thin-sandwich and puncture methods yield binary black hole solutions in quasiequilibrium?. Physical Review D 68 (6) 064003. (10.1103/PhysRevD.68.064003)

1999

Hannam, M. and Thompson, W. J. 1999. Estimating small signals by using maximum likelihood and Poisson statistics. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment 431 (1-2), pp.239-251. (10.1016/S0168-9002(99)00269-7)

1998

Mashhoon, B. et al., 1998. Observable frequency shifts via spin-rotation coupling. Physics letters. A. 249 (3), pp.161-166. (10.1016/S0375-9601(98)00729-4)

Research interests

Numerical Relativity and Gravitational-Wave Astronomy

Numerical Relativity involves solving Einstein's equations of generalrelativity on a computer, and one of the most exciting currentapplications is to model two black holes that orbit each other, inspiraltogether, and merge to form a single black hole. The reason this is so topical is that these simulations are the only way to predict thegravitational-wave signal from black-hole mergers, which provided the first direct gravitational-wave observations by LIGO in 2015 -- and indeed, many more detections since then. Our gravitational-wave signal models were used to decipher the properties of those first direct gravitational-wave detections. As the detectors become more sensitive, and we are able to extract more detailed information from gravitational-wave signals, we need to move beyond the simple approximate models that we have developed so far, and construct precision models that capture all of the physics of black-hole-binary systems.

I teach the 4th-year course, "Introductinon to General Relativity", and the MSc course "Numerical relativity and waveform modelling".

I studied at Waikato and Canterbury Universities in New Zealand, and atthe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in the USA. During my PhDI numerically solved the equations necessary to provide the initialconditions for simulations of collisions of black holes.

After I completed my PhD in 2003, I embarked on a research world tour,stopping at the University of Texas at Brownsville; theFriedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany; University College Cork,Ireland; and the University of Vienna, Austria. In 2010 I came to Cardiffas an STFC Advanced Fellow, and became a professor in 2015. In 2015 I was also awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant to study precessing binary black holes.