[CCRG ANNUAL REPORT 2011]
Rochester Institute of Technology
July 01, 2010 – June 30, 2011
CCRG Annual Report 2011
September 2011
Annual Report 2010-2011 from:
Center for Computational Relativity & Gravitation
Rochester Institute of Technology
111 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623-5603
Phone: 585-475-5298
http://ccrg.rit.edu/
Authors:
Dr. Manuela Campanelli,
Director, Center for Computational Relativity & Gravitation,
Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, College of Science;
With the assistance of:
Mayank Bindal,
Staff Assistant, Center for Computational Relativity & Gravitation, College of Business.
And CCRG members:
Dr. Hans-Peter Bischof,
Professor, Department of Computer Science, Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences;
Dr. Joshua Faber,
Assistant Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, College of Science;
Dr. Carlos O. Lousto,
Associate Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, College of Science;
Dr. Hiroyuki Nakano,
Senior Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Mathematical Sciences, College of Science;
Dr. Scott Noble,
Associate Research Scientist, School of Mathematical Sciences, College of Science;
Dr. Bruno Mundim,
Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Mathematical Sciences, College of Science;
Dr. John T. Whelan,
Associate Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, College of Science;
Dr. Yosef Zlochower,
Assistant Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, College of Science.
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
Contents
About CCRG .......................................................................................................................................4
People ...............................................................................................................................................5
Research Programs and Collaborations ...............................................................................................9
Sponsored Research Funding and External Grants ............................................................................. 11
Research Expenditures ..................................................................................................................... 14
F&A Return Costs Funding ................................................................................................................ 14
Publications ..................................................................................................................................... 15
Talks ................................................................................................................................................ 18
Other Research Contributions and Dissemination Activities .............................................................. 21
Speaker and Visitor Program ............................................................................................................ 21
Other Activities and Events .............................................................................................................. 22
Educational Activities ....................................................................................................................... 24
Outreach Activities .......................................................................................................................... 25
Computer Facilities .......................................................................................................................... 26
Space Renovation ............................................................................................................................ 27
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
About CCRG
Mission and Vision
The Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation (CCRG) is an interdisciplinary Center of
Excellence at Rochester Institute of Technology. Its mission is to serve as a focus point for research in
key designated areas of gravitational physics, relativistic astrophysics and computation, with the goal of
advancing discovery and knowledge of some of the most extreme physical phenomena in the universe.
The CCRG currently comprises tens of members among faculty, postdoctoral researchers, staff and
students residing in the College of Science and the Golisano College of Computing and Information
Sciences. Faculties are also affiliated with the Astrophysical Sciences and Technology (AST) and
Computing and Information Sciences (CIS) graduate programs.
The Center is an umbrella for a number of research programs and external scientific collaborations with
access to advanced, specialized supercomputing facilities. These programs are supported by external
grants at a level of approximately one million dollars per year. A visitor program, workshops and other
scientific activities also contribute to the creation of a vibrant research environment. Members of the
center also participate in outreach activities, with numerous presentations, annual exhibits for teachers
and students (at all levels) and the general public.
Brief History
The CCRG was founded in the School of Mathematical Sciences (SMS) in January 2007 with five initial
members: Dr. M. Campanelli (Director), Dr. C. O. Lousto, and Dr. Y. R. Zlochower of the School of
Mathematical Sciences; Dr. D. Merritt of the physics department; and Dr. H.P. Bischof of the computer
science department. It was originally built upon a five-year Strategic Plan which is based on three main
objectives: (1) hire a critical mass of high-caliber experts in the Center's mission critical research areas,
(2) obtain the needed research infrastructure, computer facilities, working space and staff personnel to
carry out its main mission, and (3) develop a sustainable model for investing and for growth. The Center
is also following the academic center protocol approved by the RIT senate in 5/1/2008.
Since then, the center has doubled in size, with the addition of 2 faculty, Dr. J. A. Faber and Dr. J. T.
Whelan, one associate research scientist, Dr. S. C. Noble, and 5 postdoctoral researchers, Dr. H. Nakano,
Dr. B. C. Mundim, Dr. M. A. Frei and Dr. J. T. Nordhaus, and an increasing number of graduate and
undergraduate students, and has brought 4.3 million dollars in research funding from NASA and NSF.
Today, CCRG is a multi-disciplinary research Center of Excellence that brings together a number of highcaliber faculty, research scientists, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students from several
departments and colleges.
A more detailed history of CCRG is available in the following references:
 The University Magazine (spring 2008)
 The RIT research magazine (spring 2010)
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
Membership, Governance and Organization
The CCRG is an F&A Return Designated Research Center, a COS research center, and an RIT
interdisciplinary center of excellence.
Members of the CCRG are faculty, research scientists, postdoctoral researchers, and students, from
several RIT’s departments and colleges who contribute to the core mission of the center. New faculty
members can openly join the center upon the consensus of all members of all participating tenure and
tenure track faculty, including the Director. Students and post-doctoral researchers working in research
projects with CCRG faculty members are automatically granted membership.
The CCRG is governed by a Director (Campanelli) and an Executive Committee (EC) composed by RIT’s
tenure and tenure track faculty, who are senior members of the Center and who significantly contribute
to the core mission of the center, and to its funding. The Director and the executive faculty oversees
Centers’ activities and research programs, mentor postdoctoral researchers and students, administer its
internal funding, computer laboratory and website, and promote the Center’s growth, collaborations
and its international visibility. Activities includes Seminars and Colloquia, Informal Lunches, Journal
Club, Workshops and research Meetings. All senior members are Principal Investigators (PIs) of the
funded projects.
The Center has selected an External Advisory Board (EAB) made of an independent body of well-known
and experienced scientists, who are leaders in research areas relevant to the CCRG and who have
experience in managing research centers, institutes and facilities. The role of the EAB is to evaluate the
Center's performance, advise its governing body on strategic planning and policy matters, and provide
recommendations to the RIT’s administration. EAB members also provide vital linkages between the
Center and the international scientific community. The EAB meets once every two or three years.
People
The CCRG currently comprises a team of 23 full
members among faculty, staff researchers and
students, across three RIT's departments: the
School of Mathematical Sciences (SMS), the Physics
Department (PHY), and Computer Science
Department (CS); and two colleges, the College of
Science (COS) and the Golisano College of
Computing and Information Sciences (GCCIS).
There are:
 7 core faculty: Hans-Peter Bischof (CS),
Manuela Campanelli (SMS, Director), Joshua
Faber (SMS), Carlos O. Lousto (SMS), David
Merritt (PHY), John Whelan (SMS), and Yosef
Zlochower (SMS).
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CCRG Annual Report 2011

5 full-time postdoctoral researchers/senior scientists: Bruno Mundim (SMS), Hiroyuki Nakano (SMS),
Scott C. Noble (SMS), Melissa Frei (SMS), and Jason Nordhaus (SMS) who are supported via external
funds.

8 students (6 graduate and 2
undergraduate): Julio Espinal Graduate Student (BS/MS in
Computer Science - GCCIS), John
Kaeuper - Graduate student
(BS/MS in Computer Science GCCIS), Prabath Peiris - Graduate
Student (MS/PhD in Astrophysical
Sciences & Technology – COS),
Marcelo Ponce - Graduate student
(PhD in Astrophysical Sciences & Technology - COS), Billy Vazquez - Graduate Student (MS/PhD in
Astrophysical Sciences & Technology - COS), Ian Ruchlin – Graduate Student (PhD in Astrophysical
Sciences & Technology – COS), Jeremy Berke – Undergraduate Student (BS Electrical Engineering),
Anthony Castiglia – Undergraduate Student (BA in Applied Mathematics -- SMS/COS).

3 student workers supported through F&A return funds. These are: Mayank Bindal (MBA student in
College of Business), who provides administrative and financial support to the CCRG members and
the Director. Web administration is provided by another two CCRG student workers Steven DuBois
(CS) and Tim Peterson (CS).
Additional administrative help is occasionally provided on a need basis by senior staff assistant of SMS,
Shelly Cicero, and Tina Williams (also in SMS), Yancey Moore and Tammy Sharpstene, in the RIT's
Sponsored Programs Accounting (SPA), provide financial grant support to individual principal
investigators (PIs).
Members Profiles
Manuela Campanelli is a professor of mathematics at RIT, the Director of the CCRG, and a member of
the Astrophysical Sciences and Technology (AST) Ph.D. program faculty, Chair elect of the Topical Group
and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. She is the principal investigator of several research
programs and directly oversees the work of two postdoctoral researchers, Scott Noble and Bruno
Mundim, graduate student Billy Vasquez, and all CCRG student workers. She is also the PI of the
NewHorizon cluster.
Carlos Lousto is an associate professor of mathematics at RIT, senior executive member of the CCRG,
and a member of the AST Ph.D. program faculty. He leads the group effort on black-hole simulations and
oversees the work of postdoctoral researcher Hiroyuki Nakano and graduate student Ian Ruchlin and
Marcelo Ponce. Carlos is responsible for computer allocation resources of the numerical relativity group.
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
Hans-Peter Bischof is a professor of computer science, a senior executive member of the CCRG, and a
member of the Computing and Information Sciences (CIS) PhD. He leads the visualization effort at the
CCRG. He is also the principal investigator of an REU program and the graduate coordinator of the MS
program in computer science. Bischof is responsible of organizing the annual Imagine RIT exhibits of the
CCRG. He also oversees all CS students participating in the CCRG.
Joshua Faber is an assistant professor of mathematics at RIT, a senior executive member of the CCRG,
and a member of the AST Ph.D. program faculty. He is one of the leaders of the project to develop and
implement the MHD functionality in the code on top of the existing hydrodynamics infrastructure. He
oversees graduate student Prabath Peiris, as well as some projects involving graduate student Marcelo
Ponce.
John Whelan is an associate professor of mathematics at RIT, a senior executive member of the CCRG,
and a member of the AST Ph.D. program faculty. He is the Principal Investigator of the RIT-CCRG group
in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC). He oversees postdoctoral researcher Melissa Frei, graduate
student Prabath Peiris, and undergraduate student Antony Castiglia.
Yosef Zlochower is an assistant professor of mathematics at RIT, a senior executive member of the CCRG,
and a member of the AST Ph.D. program faculty. He is one of the leaders of the projects involving blackhole simulations. He oversees the graduate research of Marcelo Ponce. He is also in charge of the CCRG
lunches and is responsible of the computer and network administration of the CCRG. He is also the
computer administrator of the NewHorizon cluster.
Bruno Mundim is a postdoc at CCRG supervised by Campanelli. He has been involved with the
developments of more astrophysically realistic initial data for black-hole binary. He has recently turned
most of its focus into the development and testing of the GRMHD infrastructure for the Einstein Toolkit.
Bruno is supported by NSF grant PHY-0903782 at 98% level. The remaining portion is supported through
F&A return funds to allow him to participate in career development activities.
David Merritt is a professor of physics, a senior member of the CCRG, and a member of the AST PhD. His
fields of interest include galaxy dynamics and evolution, supermassive black holes, and computational
astrophysics. He supervised the work of Fabio Antonini, a graduate student in the AST program. He is
the PI of the Gravity Simulator GRAPE cluster.
Hiroyuki Nakano is a senior postdoc at CCRG supervised by Lousto. He has been involved with all
analytical relativity aspects of black-hole binary sources and work at the interface of source simulation
and gravitational wave data analysis. He is also an international member of the LCGT project, the
Japanese gravitational wave interferometer. Hiroyuki is also responsible for organizing the Journal Club
activities of the relativity group at the CCRG. Hiroyuki is supported by NSF grant PHY- 0969855 at 98%
effort level. The remaining portion is supported through F&A return funds to allow him to participate in
career development activities.
Scott Noble is an associate research scientist at RIT supervised by Campanelli. He is involved with the
development of the GRMHD infrastructure for the Einstein Toolkit, as well as GRMHD simulations of
accretion physics. Scott is supported by NSF grant AST- 1028087 at 98% effort level. The remaining
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
portion is supported through F&A return funds to allow him to participate in career development
activities.
Melissa Frei joined the CCRG in September 1st, 2011 as a postdoctoral Researcher at RIT under the
supervision of John Whelan. She will be working on gravitational wave data analysis. She is supported
by NSF grant PHY-0855494 at the 98% effort level. The remaining portion is supported through F&A
return funds to allow her to participate in career development activities.
Jason Nordhaus joined the CCRG in August 15, 2011. He is a theoretical astrophysicist from Princeton
University. Currently, he is working on the theory of core-collapse supernovae, nucleosynthesis in
RGB/AGB stars, the evolution and dynamics of magnetic fields in evolved stars, and binary-induced
shaping of planetary nebulae. He joins our center with a prestigious NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics
Postdoctoral Fellowships (AAPF), NSF AST-1102738. He is entirely self-supported via NSF.
Fabio Antonini is a PhD student in RIT's AST PhD program. He is investigating black-hole astrophysics
under Merritt supervision. He is supported through grant NSF AST-. Fabio graduated in Spring 2011 and
will be taking a postdoctoral position at CITA in Toronto, Canada.
Marcelo Ponce is a PhD student in RIT's AST PhD program. He is investigating black-hole binary mergers
horizons and black hole kicks under Zlochower’s supervision. He is supported through grant NSF ARRA
PHY- 0929114. Marcelo is expected to graduate in Fall 2011 and will be taking a postdoctoral position at
the University of Guelph, Canada soon after that.
Ian Ruchlin is a PhD student in RIT's AST PhD program. He is investigating black-hole binary mergers, as
well as alternate initial data formulations under Lousto supervision. He is supported through grant NSF
PHY- 0969855.
Prabath Peiris is a Masters student (about to enter the PhD program) in RIT's AST graduate program. He
is investigating initial data for black hole-neutron star systems under Josh Faber's supervision and
working in gravitational wave data analysis under John Whelan's supervision. He is supported through
NASA grant NNX09AD20G, NSF grant PHY-0855494 and Dr. Whelan's startup funds.
Billy Vazquez is a Masters student in RIT's AST PhD program. He is investigating accretion physics using
analytical models for the metric under Camapnelli’s supervision. He is supported through NSF grant PHY0903782 and NASA – NNX08AH20G.
Antony Castiglia is an undergraduate student in the SMS, working on gravitational wave research with
John Whelan. He is supported through NSF grant PHY-0855494 and Dr. Whelan's start-up funds.
Jeremy Berke is an undergraduate student in the EE department, who has been working on black hole
binary research with Campanelli and Nakano during summer 2010. Jeremy was supported through a
Center for Student Innovation (CIS) Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship. Jeremy is now doing
international studies in physics and astronomy at the university of Melbourne is Australia.
Julio Espinal is a BS/MS student in Computer Science. Julio participated in the 2009 REU at RIT (High
Performance Filesystems and Data Visualization Julio is working with Bischof on replacing the
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
visualization components with a Pixar's RenderMan™ implementation. He is supported through CS
department funds.
Tim Peterson is a MS student in CS. Tim served as the webmaster for the CCRG web site and server
maintenance team. He is occasionally working with Zlochower on keeping our systems secure. Tim is
supported on an hourly basis through special project funds of PI Campanelli.
Mayank Bindal is the Administrative and Financial Staff Assistant for the Center. He joined CCRG in
spring 2010. He is currently pursuing his MBA- Finance & Accounting in the Saunders College of
Business. He worked for four years with various multinational organizations in India and he is now
looking to make a career in equity markets after his MBA and CFA. He is supported as a co-op student
through F&A return funds.
Steven DuBois is an undergraduate CS student. At the CCRG, Steven serves as a systems administrator
and webmaster, managing servers and the various software tools in use by the center. Previously,
Steven has worked as a Campaigns Intern for the Free Software Foundation and as a freelance web
developer. He is supported through Center F&A return funds and Special Project Funds.
Research Programs and Collaborations
The Center is organized into several divisions or research areas, in which faculty, postdoctoral
researchers and student’s members collaborate in joint projects. These are:
General Relativity and Gravitation. We are interested in theoretical gravitational physics
as it applies to experiments and observations, including solutions to Einstein's field
equations and their fundamental properties in general relativity and in other plausible
theory of gravity.
Numerical Relativity and Source Modeling. Our primary purpose is to model
astrophysical sources of gravitational radiation, such as for example the inspiral and
merger of binary black holes and neutron stars.
Relativistic magneto-hydrodynamics. We study the merger of neutron stars, gravitational
core collapse and supernovae, supermassive black-holes and their accretion disks. These
phenomena may be the source of powerful gamma ray bursts and relativistic jets.
Stellar death. We study the late stages of stellar evolution for both low-mass stars and
their high-mass counterparts. Active areas of research include the physics of corecollapse supernovae, white dwarfs, planetary nebulae, neutron stars and binary star
systems.
Gravitational wave observations. As part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, we
analyze data from the LIGO, GEO-600 and Virgo data to search for gravitational waves
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
from compact binary coalescences, rapidly rotating neutron stars, and the cosmic gravitational-wave
background.
Active galactic nuclei, galactic dynamics, and N-body simulation.
Advanced Computation, Visualization and Cyberinfrastrure. Our emphasis is on highperformance computing, visualization, and open source software development for
astrophysics and gravitational wave science.
CCRG members are engaged in international scientific collaborations such as:

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) – An international collaboration of over 750 scientists at 50
institutions worldwide who have joined together in the search for gravitational waves from the most
violent events in the universe, such as the merger of black holes and neutron stars, the explosion of
supernovae and the Big-Bang. Whelan (PI), Bischof, Campanelli, Lousto, Frei, Nakano, Ponce, Peiris
and Castiglia are members of the LSC.

The LCGT and DECIGO collaborations – These are Japanese ground‐based and space
gravitational wave antenna projects. Nakano is a member of this collaboration.

The LISA international Science Community (LISC) – LISA (the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) is
an ESA space‐based gravitational‐wave observatory that will allow us to detect gravitational waves
from massive black‐hole mergers in the centers of galaxies, from the ultra‐compact binary systems
in our own Galaxy and from many other sources. LISA’s planned launch date is 2020+ by ESA. The
purpose of LISC is to exchange information about LISA with the wider science community.
Campanelli is a member of this collaboration.

The Numerical Injection Analysis (NINJA) project - This project is to bring the numerical relativity
and data analysis communities together to pursue projects of common interest in the areas of
gravitational‐wave detection, astrophysics and astronomy. Campanelli, Faber, Whelan, Frei, Lousto,
Nakano, Mundim, Ponce and Zlochower.

The Numerical Relativity and Analytical Relativity Collaboration (NRAR) – NRAR is collaboration
about all numerical relativity and analytical relativity groups in the world to build a bank of binary
black‐hole coalescences templates for detection and analysis of the Advanced LIGO project (2014).
Lousto (PI), Campanelli, Zlochower, Nakano, Mundim, Ponce are members of NRAR.

The Einstein Toolkit Consortium – The Einstein Toolkit Consortium (ET) – This is a consortium
among several groups to develop and support open software for relativistic astrophysics to take
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CCRG Annual Report 2011

advantage of emerging petascale computers and advanced cyber infrastructure. This consortium is
funded by NSF PHY 0903973/0903782/0904015 (CIGR), NSF PHY 0653303 (XiRel). Campanelli (PI),
Bischof, Faber, Lousto, Mundim, Noble, Ponce and Zlochower.
The Blue Waters Project – The numerical relativity group is collaborating with the National Center
for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) through NSF PRAC award OCI-0832606 (in collaboration
with OCI-0941653). Blue Waters is expected to be one of the most powerful supercomputers in the
world when it comes online in 2011. It will have a peak performance of 10 petaflops (10 quadrillion
calculations every second) and will achieve sustained performance of 1 petaflop running a range of
science and engineering codes. Campanelli (PI), Bischof, Faber, Lousto, Mundim, Noble and
Zlochower.

Computing Supermassive Black Hole Mergers in Astrophysics Collaboration- Collaborative project
among RIT, Johns Hopkins University, University of Virginia, Princeton University, Montana State
University funded by NSF CDI-Type II awards AST-1028087/1028111. Campanelli is the PI of the
project. Participating the project are also Noble, Mundim, Nakano and Zlochower.

The Coma Cluster Treasury Survey – The astrophysics and galactic dynamics group (PI Merritt)
participates in the Coma Cluster Treasury Survey, a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) /
Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Treasury Program that was designed to survey both the core
and an infall region of the richest local cluster of galaxies: the Coma cluster.
Individual CCRG members also collaborate closely with faculty in other research units at RIT such as the
Center for applied and Computational Mathematics (CACM) in the School of Mathematical Sciences, the
Physics and Computer Science departments, and the Center for Imaging Sciences, through its affiliation
to graduate programs in Astrophysical Sciences and Technology (AST), Applied and Computational
Mathematics (ACM), Computing and Information Sciences (CIS) and CS.
Sponsored Research Funding and External Grants
Center’s members have secured $4.6 million in external grants since January 2007. Most of this funding
comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
The table shows the grant income by PI:
Proposals
Submitted
Proposals
Submitted
Value
Proposals
Submitted
as Co-PI
Awarded
Projects
Awards
Received
Value
Active
Projects
Bischof, Hans-Peter
Campanelli, Manuela
1
13
$291,370
$13,325,840
8
5
1
8
$275,000
$2,010,153
1
8
Lousto, Carlos
Zlochower, Yosef
Merritt, David
Faber, Joshua
Whelan, John
3
4
8
5
1
$1,051,152
$1,293,857
$1,084,740
$1,602,532
$626,758
9
11
7
5
2
2
10
2
1
$459,176
$156,191
$852,467
$400,192
$210,000
2
2
10
2
1
Total
35
$19,276,249
45
26
$4,363,179
26
Name
List of Grants
Listed below is the complete list of all active awards during last year:
1. Collaborative Research: Supermassive Black Hole Mergers: Astrophysical Environment and
Electromagnetic Signals, NSF AST-1009582. PI: J. Krolik. Co-PI: M. Campanelli. Funds:
$1,000,000. Status: awarded (08/31/2010-09/01/2015).
2. “CRPA: Astrophysics and Dance: Engaging Deaf Students in Science Education”, NSF DRL
1136221, PI: M. Campanelli. Co-PIs: Thomas Warfield, Joseph Bochner, Jacob Noel-Storr, HansPeter Bischof. Funds: $149,973. Status: recommended (10/01/2011-09/30/2012).
3. CDI- Type II: Collaborative Research: Computing Supermassive Black Hole Mergers in
Astrophysics, NSF CDI-6995376. PI: M. Campanelli. Co-PI: Y. Zlochower, S. C. Noble, J. Krolik.
Funds: $1,000,000. Status: award recommended (08/01/2010-09/30/2014).
4. Astrophysical Black-Hole Binaries, Gravitational waves and their Electromagnetic Counterparts,
NASA ATFP. PI: C. Lousto. Co-PI: M. Campanelli, S. Noble and Y. Zlochower. Funds: $390,058.
Status: pending (06/01/2011 - 05/31/2014).
5. Exploring Extreme Black Hole Binaries, NSF PHY-0969855. PI: C. O. Lousto. Co-PI: M. Campanelli,
Y. Zlochower. Funds: $600,107; F&A Budget: $55403. Status: awarded (06/01/201005/31/2011).
6. Collaborative Research: Community Infrastructure for General Relativistic MHD (CIGR), NSF PHY0903782. PI: M. Campanelli. Co-PI: H.P. Bischof, C. Lousto, J. Faber, and Y. Zlochower. Funds:
$300,000; F & A Budget: $85035. Status: awarded (10/01/2009 - 09/30/2012).
7. PRAC: Computational Relativity and Gravitation at the Petascale: Simulating Astrophysical
Realistic Compact Binaries, NSF OCI-0832606. PI: M. Campanelli. Co-PI: H.-P. Bischof, C. O.
Lousto, Y. Zlochower, and J. Faber. Funds: $38,104; F & A Budget: $10983. Status: awarded
(09/15/2009--8/31/2012).
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
8. RUI - Gravitational Wave Modeling and Detection, NSF PHY-0855494. PI: J.T.Whelan. Funds:
$210,000; F & A Budget: $10983. Status: awarded (08/15/2009 - 07/31/2012).
9. NASA ROSES Outreach Supplement: Cafe Scientifique Rochester, NASA 08-OUTRCH208-0011. PI:
J. Faber. Co-PI: M. Campanelli. Funds: $20,851. Status: Awarded (04/30/2009-05/01/2011).
10. High Performance Computing and Data Visualization REU Site, NSF CCF-0851743, PI: H.-P.
Bischof. Co-PI: Minsoek Kwon. Funds: $275,000, F & A Budget: $33750. Status: awarded
(05/01/2009-04/30/2012).
11. Binary compact object mergers as short-hard gamma-ray burst progenitors, NASA ATFP08-0093.
PI: J. Faber. Co-PI:Y. Zlochower, C. Lousto, A. Harkin, and D. Ross. Funds: $365,914; F & A
Budget: $109782. Status: awarded (01/01/2008-12/31/2011).
12. Next Generation Parallel Computing Infrastructure for Numerical Relativity NSF - Gravity. PI: Y.
Zlochower. Co-PI: J. Faber. Funds: $70,000; F & A Budget: $20178. Status: awarded (09/01/2009
- 08/31/2011).
13. SCREMS: Next Generation Parallel Computing Infrastructure for Numerical Relativity (20082011) NSF-SCREMS. PI: Y. Zlochower. Co-PI:J. Faber. Funds: $ 86,911. Status: awarded
(09/01/2008-08/31/2011).
14. MRI: Acquisition of two special-purpose computers for simulation of the galactic center
environment, NSF MRI-0821141. PI: D. Merritt. Co-PI: D. Figer. Funds:$ 108,232. Status:
awarded (08/15/2008 - 07/31/2010).
15. Astrophysical Black Holes and Gravitational waves NASA ATFP07-0158. PI: M. Campanelli. Co-PI:
C. Lousto, D. Merritt and Y. Zlochower. Funds: $140,185; F & A Budget: $40407. Status: awarded
(07/01/2008-06/30/2011).
16. Simulations of Black-Hole Binaries with Moving Punctures, NSF PHY-0714388. PI: M. Campanelli.
Co-PI: C. Lousto, Y. Zlochower. Funds: $350,000; F & A Budget: $105757. Status: awarded
(07/01/2007-12/31/2010).
17. MRI: Acquisition of an Advanced Computer Cluster for Computational Relativity and Gravitation,
NSF MRI-0722703. PI: M. Campanelli. Co-PI: C. Lousto, D. Merrit, Y. Zlochower. Funds: $331,974.
Status: awarded (09/01/2007-08/31/2011).
18. Dynamical Studies of the Galactic Center, NSF AST-0807910. PI: D. Merritt. Co-PI: Simon
Portegies_Zwart, Tal Alexander. Funds: $146,789; F & A Budget: $25724. Status: awarded
(08/01/2008 - 07/31/2011 ).
19. Merging Supermassive Black Holes: Observational consequences of Gravitational-Radiation
Recoils, Spin and Gas Dynamics, NASA HST (Cycle 17 AR 1173). PI: C. Lousto. Co-PI: M.
Campanelli, J. Faber, Y. Zlochower. Funds: $60,991; F & A Budget: $17581. Status: awarded
(09/01/2008 – 08/31/2010).
20. MRI: A Parallel Dedicated Platform for Gravitational Dynamics, NSF-MRI. PI: D. Merritt. Funds: $
371,151. Status: awarded (08/01/2004 - 07/31/2011).
Listed below is the complete list of all non-active awards since January 2007:
21. Collaborative Research: XiRel, a Next Generation Infrastructure for Numerical Relativity, NSF
PHY-0653303. PI: M. Campanelli. Co-PI: C. Lousto. Funds: $ 49,375; F & A Budget: $14233.
Status: awarded, awarded (09/01/2007-12/31/2009).
22. Gravitational Waves from Black Hole Binaries, NSF PHY-0722315. PI: M. Campanelli. Funds:
$154,424; F & A Budget: $30244. Status: awarded (01/01/2007-08/31/2008).
23. An ACS Treasury Survey of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies, NASA-HST. PI: D. Merritt. Co-PI: D.
13
CCRG Annual Report 2011
Batchelor. Funds: $ 50,020; F & A Budget: $15116. Status: awarded, awarded (01/07/200708/31/2008).
24. Beyond the Million-Body Problem, NASA-ATP. PI: D. Merritt. Funds: $ 309,696; F & A Budget:
$93578. Status: awarded, closed (09/01/2007-08/31/2008).
25. Black Holes and the Dynamics of Galactic Nuclei, NSF-AST. PI: D. Merritt. Funds: $ 117,267.
Status: awarded (07/15/2004 - 06/30/2008). - Last year only.
Research Expenditures
Last year, our overall research expenditures amounted to $831,063 (which approximately average to
$120,000 per faculty1). Most of these expenses were to support salaries and benefits of postdoctoral
researchers, summer salary of faculty and graduate students GRAs. Additionally, we spent $157,000 in
research equipment in August 2011, but these expenditures will be reported in next year report.
The following figure gives an idea of the major expenditures of CCRG sponsored research grants:
F&A Return Costs Funding
As one of the F&A return designated centers, CCRG receives F&A return funds to sustain its operating
costs from the VP of Research and Associate Provost of Academic Affairs. There are multiple ongoing
costs associated with the Center’s operation. These costs are currently supported by overhead (F&A)
return funds (20%), based on RIT’s formula and procedure for the return of Facilities & Administrative
Costs. PIs also receive F&A return funds (10%).
The overall CCRG F&A return funds are used to support activities and items that benefit the Center as an
overall entity and that cannot be supported through regular research grant funds. These typically
include: the salary of one or two administrative and one computer staff assistants (these are student
employees or Co-op students), the speaker and research visitor program, the maintenance and
1
Note that this figure is in perfect agreement with the predicted research expenses reported in the CCRG plan of
expansion (March 2007).
14
CCRG Annual Report 2011
upgrades of the computer laboratory and equipment, travel and hospitality of visitors to CCRG
workshops and meetings, postdoctoral developmental activities (2% of the overall salary of each
postdoc affiliated with the center), funds to support the annual Imagine RIT event, and other operating
costs.
The following table summarizes the F&A recovery funds over 5 years of operation of the center2:
PI name
FY07
FY08
FY09
FY10
FY11
Campanelli
Lousto
Merritt
Faber
Bischof
Zlochower
Whelan
Total
2,101
NA
8,314
NA
NA
NA
NA
10,416
9,108
NA
8,152
NA
NA
NA
NA
17,259
9,146
193
7,534
1,166
900
NA
NA
18,938
13,821
2,469
9,132
7,301
2,250
1,036
1,518
37,952
15,594
13,578
2,585
4,972
1,875
2,967
2,224
37,007
Publications
CCRG members regularly publish articles in refereed journals. The number of articles published since
foundation has reached 200 papers (we publish approximately 40-50 papers per year). The quality of
the publications can be measured by the high scientific impact factor of the journals (Nature,
Astrophysical Journal Letters, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review D, The Astrophysical Journal,
Classical and Quantum Gravity) and the number of citations per article (in some cases reaching several
hundreds to thousands per article).
The following is the list of publications submitted for publication and published by CCRG authors and
co-authors during academic year 2010-2011:
1. Hans-Peter Bischof and Alexander Dong, Directing a Visualization ala Kubrick, International
Conference on Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality 2011;
2. Joshua A. Faber and Frederic A. Rasio, Binary Neutron Star Mergers, Living Reviews in Relativity,
submitted (2011);
3. Richard C. Labiak, Jan A. N. van Aardt, Dmitry Bespalov, Darryl Eychner, Erin Wirch and Hans-Peter
Bischof, "Automated method for detection and quantification of building damage and debris using
post-disaster lidar data", Laser Radar Technology and Applications XVI, 2011, Proc. SPIE 8037,
80370F (2011); doi:10.1117/12.883509;
2
In Year 2007, the Center received start-up seed funding to begin its operation for an overall amount of
$70,000. In year 2008, the Center was also supported through an operating budget of $50,000 within
the SMS. In year 2009, special funds up to $60,000 were allocated to support upgrades in the computer
laboratory. In spring 2010, upon the Dean’s request 80% of Merritt contributions to the Center were
transferred to his special discretionary account.
15
CCRG Annual Report 2011
4. Hiroyuki Nakano Yosef Zlochower Carlos O. Lousto Manuela Campanelli, Intermediate-mass-ratio
black hole binaries II: Modeling Trajectories and Gravitational Waveforms, August 22, 2011,
[arXiv:1108.4421];
5. J. Abadie et al [including J. T. Whelan] (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration), S.
Buchner, A. Hotan and J. Palfreyman, Beating the spin-down limit on gravitational wave emission
from the Vela pulsar, The Astrophysical Journal, August 20, 2011, [arXiv:1104.2712];
6. Carlos Lousto Yosef Zlochower, Hangup Kicks: Still Larger Recoils by Partial Spin/Orbit Alignment of
Black-Hole Binaries, August 9, 2011, [arXiv:1108.2009];
7. Fabio Antonini, David Merritt, Dynamical Friction Around Supermassive Black Holes, August 4, 2011,
[arXiv:1108.1163];
8. David Merritt, Chandrasekhar Centenary Talk, "Stellar Dynamics and Black Holes", Pramana Journal
of Physics, July 31, 2011, [arxiv:1103.5446];
9. Po Kin Leung Charles F. Gammie Scott C. Noble, Numerical Calculation of Magnetobremsstrahlung
Emission and Absorption Coefficients, The Astrophysical Journal, July 26, 2011;
10. Alessia Gualandris, David Merritt, Long-term evolution of massive black hole binaries. IV. Mergers of
galaxies with collisionally relaxed nuclei, July 20, 2011, [arxiv:1107.4095];
11. Sungsoo S. Kim, Takayuki R. Saitoh, Myoungwon Jeon, Donald F. Figer, David Merritt, Keiichi Wada,
Nuclear Star-Forming Ring of the Milky Way: Simulations, July 20, 2011, [arXiv:1106.0367];
12. Kipp Cannon et al [including Melissa Frei], Title: Toward Early-Warning Detection of Gravitational
Waves from Compact Binary Coalescence, July 13, 2011, [arXiv:1107.2665];
13. Marcelo Ponce, Joshua A. Faber, James C. Lombardi Jr, Accretion disks around kicked black holes:
Post-kick Dynamics, July 10, 2011, [arXiv:1107.1711v1 [astro-ph.CO]];
14. C. T. Y. Chung, A. Melatos, B. Krishnan, and J. T. Whelan, Designing a cross-correlation search for
continuous-wave gravitational radiation from a neutron star in the supernova remnant SNR 1987A,
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, July 1, 2011, [arXiv:1102.4654];
15. Marcelo Ponce, Carlos Lousto, Yosef Zlochower, Seeking for toroidal event horizons from initially
stationary BH configurations, Class. Quantum Grav, June 20, 2011, [arXiv:1008.2761];
16. Bruno C. Mundim, Bernard J. Kelly, Yosef Zlochower, Hiroyuki Nakano, Manuela Campanelli, Hybrid
black-hole binary initial data, Class. Quantum Grav. June 16, 2011, [arXiv:1012.0886];
17. Hiroyuki Nakano, Manuela Campanelli, Carlos O. Lousto, Yosef Zlochower, Perturbative effects of
spinning black holes in the extreme mass-ratio limit, Class. Quantum Grav. June 16, 2011,
[arXiv:1011.2767];
18. J. Abadie et al [including J. T. Whelan] (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration), Search
for gravitational waves from binary black hole inspiral, merger and ringdown, Physical Review D,
June 6, 2011, [arXiv:1102.3781];
19. J. Abadie et al [including J. T. Whelan] (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration), R. L.
Aptekar et al, Search for Gravitational Wave Bursts from Six Magnetars, Astrophysical Journal
Letters, June 1, 2011, [1011.4079];
20. Yosef Zlochower, Manuela Campanelli, Carlos O. Lousto, Modeling Gravitational Recoil Using
Numerical Relativity, Class. Quantum Grav. May 20, 2011, [arxiv.org:1011.2210];
21. Scott C. Noble Julian H. Krolik Jeremy D. Schnittman John F. Hawley, Radiative efficiency and thermal
spectrum of accretion onto Schwarzschild black holes, May 13, 2011, [arXiv:1105.2825];
22. David Merritt, Dynamical Models of the Galactic Center, May 5, 2011, [arXiv:1001.5435];
23. Fabio Antonini, James C. Lombardi, David Merritt, Tidal breakup of binary stars at the Galactic
Center. II. Hydrodynamic simulations, May 1, 2011, [arXiv:1008.5369];
16
CCRG Annual Report 2011
24. Fazeel Khan, Andreas Just, David Merritt, Efficient Merger of Binary Supermassive Black Holes in
Merging Galaxies, The Astrophysical Journal, April 20, 2011, [arxiv:1103.0272];
25. Seiji Kawamura et al. [including Hiroyuki Nakano], The Japanese space gravitational wave antenna:
DECIGO, Classical and Quantum Gravity, April 18, 2011, [Class.Quant.Grav.28:094011];
26. Eric Peng et al. [including David Merritt], The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey. IV. Intergalactic
Globular Clusters and the Massive Globular Cluster System at the Core of the Coma Galaxy Cluster,
The Astrophysical Journal, March 1, 2011, [arxiv:1101.1000];
27. David Merritt, Tal Alexander, Seppo Mikkola, Clifford Will, Stellar Dynamics of Extreme-Mass-Ratio
Inspirals, February 15, 2011, [arxiv:1102.3180];
28. J. Abadie et al [including J. T. Whelan] (LIGO Scientific Collaboration), S. Buchner, A search for
gravitational waves associated with the August 2006 timing glitch of the Vela pulsar, Physical Review
D, February 1, 2011, [arXiv:1011.1357];
29. Alex T. Deibel, Monica Valluri, and David Merritt, The Orbital Structure of Triaxial Galaxies with
Figure Rotation, The Astrophysical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal, [arxiv:1008.2753];
30. Stephen Fairhurst, Gianluca M Guidi, Patrice Hello, John T Whelan, and Graham Woan, Current
status of gravitational-wave observations, General Relativity and Gravitation, February 1, 2011,
[arXiv:0908.4006];
31. David Merritt and Alessia Gualandris, Dynamics around Supermassive Black Holes, Space Telescope
Science Institute Symposium Series, January 31, 2011, [arxiv:0708.3083];
32. David Merritt and Eugene Vasiliev, Orbits Around Black Holes in Triaxial Nuclei, The Astrophysical
Journal, January 1, 2011, [arXiv:1005.0040];
33. Alessia Gualandris, Stefan Gillessen, David Merritt, The Galactic Centre star S2 as a dynamical probe
for intermediate-mass black holes, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, December
31, 2010, [arxiv:1006.3563];
34. Carlos O. Lousto, Hiroyuki Nakano, Yosef Zlochower, Manuela Campanelli, Intermediate-mass-ratio
black hole binaries: intertwining numerical and perturbative techniques, Physical Review D,
November 30, 2010, [arXiv:1008.4360] ;
35. Derek Hammer et al. [including David Merritt] (HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey), The HST/ACS Coma
Cluster Survey. II. Data Description and Source Catalogs, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement,
November 30, 2010, [arxiv:1005.3300];
36. M.C. Babiuc, B. Szilagyi, J. Winicour, Y. Zlochower, A Characteristic Extraction Tool for Gravitational
Waveforms, November 8, 2010, [arXiv:1011.4223v1 [gr-qc]];
37. J. Abadie et al [including J. T. Whelan] (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration), Search
for Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescence in LIGO and Virgo Data from S5 and VSR1,
Physical Review D, November 5, 2010, [arXiv:1005.4655];
38. Carlos Lousto and Yosef Zlochower, Modeling maximum astrophysical gravitational recoil velocities,
November 2, 2010, [arXiv:1011.0593];
39. Carlos Hoyos et al. [including David Merritt], The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey III. Structural
Parameters of Galaxies using single-S\'ersic Fits, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
October 12, 2010, [arXiv:1010.2352];
40. Raymond Angelil, Prasenjit Saha and David Merritt, Towards relativistic orbit fitting of Galactic
center stars and pulsars, The Astrophysical Journal, September 20, 2010, [arxiv:1007.0007];
41. J. Abadie et al [including J. T. Whelan] (LIGO Scientific Collaboration), First search for gravitational
waves from the youngest known neutron star, The Astrophysical Journal, September 20, 2010,
[arXiv:1006.2535];
17
CCRG Annual Report 2011
42. Carlos O. Lousto and Yosef Zlochower, Extreme-Mass-Ratio-Black-Hole-Binary Evolutions with
Numerical Relativity, September 2, 2010, [arXiv:1009.0292];
43. Hagai Perets and Alessia Gualandris, Dynamical Constraints on the Origin of the Young B-stars in the
Galactic Center, The Astrophysical Journal, August 30, 2010, [arxiv:1004.2703];
44. Gabriela Jaramillo and Carlos O. Lousto, Study of multi black hole and ring singularity apparent
horizons, August 12, 2010, [arXiv:1008.2001];
45. J. Abadie et al [including J. T. Whelan] (LIGO Scientific Collaboration), Calibration of the LIGO
Gravitational Wave Detectors in the Fifth Science Run, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics
Research A, August 10, 2010, [arXiv:1007.3973];
46. J Abadie et al [including J T Whelan] (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration) and K
Belczynski, Predictions for the rates of compact binary coalescences observable by ground-based
gravitational-wave detectors, Classical and Quantum Gravity, July 16, 2010, [arXiv:1003.2480];
47. David Merritt, The Distribution of Stars and Stellar Remnants at the Galactic Center, The
Astrophysical Journal, July 7, 2010, [arXiv:0909.1318];
48. Daniel Batcheldor, Andrew Robinson, David J. Axon, E. S. Perlman, David Merritt, A Displaced
Supermassive Black Hole in M87, The Astrophysical Journal, July 1, 2010, [arxiv:1005.2173];
49. J. Abadie et al [including J. T. Whelan] (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration),
Sensitivity to Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescences Achieved during LIGO's Fifth
and Virgo's First Science Run, June 1, 2010, [arXiv:1003.2481].
Talks
CCRG faculty and postdoctoral researchers regularly present their work at several conferences, meetings
and seminars and colloquia at other institutions. The following is a list of external (mostly invited) talks
given by CCRG members during the period covered by this report.
1. Understanding Black Hole Mergers by Manuela Campanelli, Head 2011 at Newport, Rhode Island,
September 7, 2011 - September 9, 2011, Invited Talk;
2. Methods and Results in 3+1 Numerical Relativity by Carlos Lousto (Invited), NR/HEP Workshop at
Madeira (Portugal), August 31, 2011 - September 3, 2011, Invited Talk;
3. Merging Black Holes in Astrophysics by Manuela Campanelli (Invited), Spanish Relativity Meeting,
ERE2011 at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, August 29, 2011 - September 2, 2011,
Invited Talk;
4. A Modelled Cross-Correlation Search for Gravitational Waves from Scorpius X-1 by Whelan, John T.
at University of Glasgow, July 20, 2011;
5. Intermediate Mass Ratio Black Hole Binaries: Numerical Relativity meets Perturbation Theory by
Carlos Lousto (Invited), NRDA at Cardiff, UK, July 10, 2011 - July 12, 2011;
6. Parameter Recovery From Spin Aligned Templates for Compact Binary Coalescence Detections by
Melissa Frei, NRDA 2011 at Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom, July 10, 2011 - July 12, 2011;
7. Thinking Like Einstein, by Joshua Faber, REU Program: "High Performance Computing and Data
Visualization", July 7, 2011;
8. GRHD Simulations of Circumbinary Disks by Yosef Zlochower, Astrophysical Black-hole Mergers
Workshop, June 28, 2011;
9. Implementation Aspects of the PN BBH spacetime approach by Nakano Hiroyuki, Astrophysical
Black-hole Mergers Workshop, June 28, 2011;
18
CCRG Annual Report 2011
10. Gravitational Radiation Recoils by Carlos Lousto, Astrophysical Black-hole Mergers Workshop at RIT,
June 27, 2011 - June 28, 2011, Invited Talk;
11. The Einstein Toolkit and its GRMHD implementation by Bruno Mundim, Astrophysical Black-hole
Mergers Workshop, June 28, 2011;
12. MHD and Microphysics, by Joshua Faber, MICRA Meeting, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, June 24,
2011;
13. Update on Cross-Correlation Search for LMXBs by John T. Whelan, LSC-Virgo Meeting Orsay, France,
June 6, 2011 - June 9, 2011;
14. Status of Compact Binary Reviews by John T. Whelan, LSC-Virgo Meeting at Orsay, France, June 6,
2011 - June 9, 2011;
15. Gravitational Recoil of Astrophysical Black Hole Binaries by Carlos Lousto, BRAZILIAN PHYSICS
MEETING 2011 at Foz do Iguaçu, June 5, 2011 - June 10, 2011, Invited Talk;
16. Modeling 1/10 to 1/100 Black Hole Binaries Using Numerical Relativity by Yosef Zlochower, Eastern
Gravity Meeting, June 2, 2011;
17. Relativistic Encounters and the Production of EMRIs by David Merritt, 14th Eastern Gravity Meeting
at Princeton, NJ, June 2, 2011 - June 3, 2011;
18. Extreme-Mass-Ratio Black-Hole Binaries with Numerical Relativity by Carlos Lousto, 14th Eastern
Gravity Meeting at Princeton University, June 2, 2011 - June 3, 2011;
19. Black Holes in Numerical Relativity by Manuela Campanelli, Black Holes VIII: Theory and
Mathematical Aspects at Niagara Falls, NY, May 10, 2011 - May 14, 2011, Invited Talk;
20. Fully Nonlinear Numerical Evolutions of Small-Mass-Ratio Black-Hole Binaries by Yosef Zlochower,
APS April meeting, May 1, 2011;
21. Intermediate-mass-ratio black hole binaries: numerical relativity meets perturbation theory by
Carlos Lousto, APS April Meeting 2011 at Anaheim, CA, April 29, 2011 - May 3, 2011;
22. Hybrid black-hole binary initial data by Bruno Mundim, APS April Meeting 2011 at Anaheim, CA April
30, 2011;
23. Cross-Correlation Searches for Periodic Gravitational Waves by John T. Whelan, Canadian Institute
for Theoretical Astrophysics, Univiersity of Toronto, April 15, 2011;
24. Cross-Correlation Searches for Periodic Gravitational Waves by John T. Whelan, Perimeter Institute,
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, April 14, 2011;
25. Relativistic Stellar Dynamics by David Merritt, University of Colorado, Boulder, April 4, 2011, Invited
Talk;
26. Numerical Simulations of Extreme-Mass-Ratio Black-Hole Mergers by Yosef Zlochower, SMS
colloquium, March 30, 2011;
27. Getting Things Into Black Holes by David Merritt, Leiden Observatory, March 29, 2011, Invited Talk;
28. CBC Review Committee Presentation by John T. Whelan, LSC-Virgo Collaboration Meeting, Arcadia,
California, March 13, 2011 - March 17, 2011;
29. MHD Simulations of BH Accretion Disks by Scott Noble, Snowpac at Snowbird, Utah, January 30,
2011 - February 5, 2011, Invited Talk;
30. Cross-Correlation Searches for Periodic Gravitational Waves by Prabath Peiris and John T. Whelan,
1st Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy Workshop at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, January 26,
2011 - January 29, 2011;
31. Nuclear Star Forming Ring of the Milky Way: Simulations by David Merritt, AAS Meeting #217 at
Seattle, WA, January 9, 2011 - January 13, 2011;
32. Relativistic Stellar Dynamics by David Merritt, Chandrasekhar Centenary Conference at Bangalore,
India, December 7, 2010 - December 11, 2010, Invited Talk;
19
CCRG Annual Report 2011
33. Simulations of Binary Black Holes Mergers by Manuela Campanelli, Physics Club at Department of
Physics, Yale University, December 5, 2010 - December 6, 2010, Invited Talk;
34. Full Numerical Simulations of Black-Hole Binaries Mergers by Manuela Campanelli, Joint
MIT/Tufts/Harvard Cosmology Seminar and ITC Seminar series at Institute for Theory and
Computation (ITC), Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), November 29, 2010 November 30, 2010, Invited Talk;
35. Numerical Relativity and Gravitational Wave Astrophysics by Manuela Campanelli, GRAILS Seminar
at Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT),
November 28, 2010 - November 29, 2010, Invited Talk;
36. Look at the post newtonian expansion of two merging blacks holes, and obtain a metric for the one
final object by Jeremy Berke, Undergraduate Research Simposium at RIT's Innovation Center,
November 12, 2010;
37. Cross-Correlation Methods in Continuous Gravitational-Wave Searches by John T. Whelan, 20th
Midwest Relativity Meeting at University of Guelph, November 5, 2010 - November 6, 2010;
38. Extreme-Mass-Ratio-Black-Hole-Binary Evolutions with Numerical Relativity by Carlos Lousto, 20th
Annual Midwest Relativity Meeting at Guelph, Canada, November 5, 2010 - November 6, 2010;
39. Geometrical Factors in the Search for Gravitational Waves from Binary Inspiral by Anthony Castiglia,
3rd St Lawrence Valley Mathematics Symposium at Clarkson University, November 5, 2010 November 6, 2010;
40. Spectral initial data for multiple black hole systems by Prabath Peiris, 20th Midwest Relativity
Meeting at University of Guelph, November 5, 2010 - November 6, 2010;
41. Event Horizons from initially stationary BH “ring” configurations by Marcelo Ponce, 20th Midwest
Relativity Meeting at University of Guelph, November 5, 2010 - November 6, 2010;
42. Numerical Relativity by Manuela Campanelli, Gravitational Waves Workshop, University of
Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA, October 14, 2010 - October 16, 2010;
43. Stellar Dynamics of EMRIs by David Merritt, Gravitational Waves 2010 at University of Minnesota,
October 14, 2010 - October 16, 2010, Invited Talk;
44. Using Bayesian Statistics to Rank Sports Teams by John T. Whelan, RIT pi-RIT seminar at RIT, October
8, 2010;
45. Exploring New Frontiers with Gravitational Wave Astronomy by Manuela Campanelli, Evening Public
Talk at Geneseo, October 7, 2010;
46. Numerical Relativity by Manuela Campanelli, 20th anniversary conference at the Yukawa Institute
for Theoretical Physics (YITP) at Kyoto University, September 21, 2010 - September 25, 2010, Invited
Talk;
47. What Immortal Hand or Eye Could Frame It: Merging Neutron Stars and Black Holes, by Joshua
Faber (Invited), University of Rochester Astrophysics Colloquium, September 20, 2010;
48. Getting Things Into Black Holes by David Merritt, LISA Astro-GR@Paris: Gravitational-wave and
electromagnetic signatures of massive black hole binaries and extreme mass-ratio inspirals at Paris
France, September 13, 2010 - September 17, 2010, Invited Talk;
49. Recent advances in modeling gravitational recoil from highly-spinning black-hole binaries by Yosef
Zlochower, 2010 SIAM Conference on Nonlinear Waves and Coherent Structures at Philadelphia, PA,
August 16, 2010 - August 19, 2010, Invited Talk;
50. Geometrical Factors in the Search for Gravitational Waves from Binary Inspiral by Anthony Castiglia,
RIT Undergraduate Research Symposium at RIT, August 13, 2010;
51. The Search for Gravitational Waves by John T. Whelan, REU Program: "High Performance Computing
and Data Visualization" at RIT, August 10, 2010;
20
CCRG Annual Report 2011
52. Null Geodesics in the 3+1 Formalism of Numerical Relativity by Billy Vazquez, Assembling
Uncommon Knowledge, Graduate Research Symposium RIT 2010 at RIT, July 21, 2010;
53. Black-hole Science with LISA by Manuela Campanelli, 19th International Conference on General
Relativity and Gravitation (GR19), GR-19 space-borne detectors session at Mexico City, MX, July 5,
2010 - July 9, 2010, Invited Talk;
54. Gravitational Recoil and its Astrophysical Consequences by Yosef Zlochower, 19th International
Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation at Mexico City, July 5, 2010 - July 9, 2010, Invited
Talk;
55. Continuous-Wave and Stochastic-Background Searches with LIGO and Virgo by John T. Whelan, 19th
International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation at Mexico City, July 5, 2010 - July 9,
2010, Invited Talk.
Other Research Contributions and Dissemination Activities
Research by CCRG researchers also appeared in more popular
magazines such as the New Scientist, Astronomy, Sky and Telescope,
Spiegel, etc. The History and Discovery channels also highlighted the
work of CCRG.

Last year, the entire CCRG team was featured in the RIT research
magazine and participated in a video shown on Channel 5. The
story is available in the online version of the New Wave
Astronomy of the RIT research magazine.

Movies and Visualizations produced by Bischof were presented
by NSF officers at meetings with US Congress representatives.
These
movies
can
be
freely
downloaded
from
http://ccrg.rit.edu/movies.
Speaker and Visitor Program
A steady stream of research scientists visits the center each year thanks to support provided by the
Center F&A return funds. We hosted 16 scientists across the US and internationally last year: Luc
Blanchet (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris), Alessandra Buonanno (University of Maryland), Steve
Drasco (Cal Poly State University), Bence Kocsis (CfA Harvard), Jamie Lombardi (Allegheny College),
Melissa Frei (University of Texas at Austin), Carlos Palenzuela (CITA), Reinhard Prix (Albert Einstein
Institute), Erik Schnetter (Louisiana State University), Jeremy Schnittman (Johns Hopkins
University/Goddard), Nico Yunes (MIT Kavli Institute/Harvard-Smithsonian (CfA)/Montana), Julian Krolik
(JHU), John Hawley (UVa), Xiaoyue Guan (UVa), Kareem Sorathia (JHU), Jiming Shi (JHU).
This program was coordinated by Noble, Campanelli with the help of Bindal for administrative
reimbursement of travel and hospitality expenses. The following is the list of Seminar and Colloquia
given last year:
21
CCRG Annual Report 2011
1. Topic: Gravitational Theory and Dark Matter, Speaker: Dr. Luc Blanchet (Institut d'Astrophysique de
Paris), Date: 05/16/2011;
2. Topic: A method for a search for inspiral merger and ringdown spin aligned waveforms using NINJA2
mock data sets and GSTLAL, Speaker: Melissa Frei, Date: 05/09/2011;
3. Topic: Modeling the Final Moments of Coalescing Compact Binaries, Speaker: Alessandra Buonanno
(University of Maryland), Date: 04/11/2011;
4. Topic: The Cactus Computational Toolkit, Speaker: Frank Loeffler (Louisiana State University), Date:
02/18/2011;
5. Topic: Gravitational Waves from Binary Systems as Probes of the Universe, Speaker: Nico Yunes
(MIT), Date: 02/07/2011;
6. Topic: Gravitational waves from Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals as Probes of Accretion Disk Physics,
Speaker: Bence Kocsis (CfA Harvard), Date: 01/24/2011;
7. Topic: Searching for Gravitational Waves from Spinning Neutron Stars, Speaker: Reinhard Prix
(Albert Einstein Institute), Date: 01/17/2011;
8. Topic: When One Black Hole is Not Like the Other, Speaker: Steve Drasco (Cal Poly), Date:
12/13/2010;
9. Topic: The Lagrange Equilibrium Points in a Binary Black Hole System: Applications to
Electromagnetic Signatures, Speaker: Dr. Jeremy Schnittman (NASA/Goddard), Date: 11/22/2010;
10. Topic: Multi-messenger astronomy for LISA: electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave
sources, Speaker: Carlos Palenzuela (CITA), Date: 10/18/2010;
11. Topic: Searching for binary black holes with LIGO, Speaker: Chad Hanna (Caltech), Date: 08/27/2010.
Other Activities and Events
There are several other internal activities organized by CCRG members. We list them here:
CCRG Lunch Discussions and Presentations
These are very popular weekly events typically held on Fridays, organized by Zlochower. They are the
venue for informal research presentations and discussions by all CCRG members and other RIT guests,
especially graduate students. Pizza is usually provided for these events. Last year, there were 23 lunch
meetings:
1. Topic: Intermediate-mass-ratio black hole binaries: Modeling Trajectories and Gravitational
Waveforms, Speaker: Hiroyuki Nakano, Yosef Zlochower (RIT), Date: 08/19/2011;
2. Topic: Hangup Kicks: Still Larger Recoils by Partial Spin/Orbit Alignment of Black-Hole Binaries,
Speaker: Carlos Lousto (RIT), Date: 08/12/2011;
3. Topic: Twin Binaries and the Formation of Binary Neutron Stars, Speaker: Jamie Lombardi (Allegheny
College), Date: 05/27/2011;
4. Topic: Dynamics and gravitational radiation of spinning compact binaries, Speaker: Luc Blanchet
(Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris), Date: 05/23/2011;
5. Topic: APS and ET meetings recap, Speaker: Carlos Lousto (RIT), Date: 05/06/2011;
6. Topic: Recent Advances in Core-Collapse Supernova Theory, Speaker: Dr. Jason Nordhaus (Princeton
University), Date: 04/08/2011;
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
7. Topic: The Einstein Toolkit, Carpet, MHD, and the numerical challenges ahead for NR research,
Speaker: Erik Schnetter (Perimeter Institute, LSU), Date: 04/01/2011;
8. Topic: Using Optical Lift to Steer Solar Sails Through Space, Speaker: Grover Swartzlander (RIT),
Date: 03/11/2011;
9. Topic: GR II Presentation, Speakers: GR Graduate Students, Date: 02/25/2011;
10. Topic: Gravitational Lensing by Compact Objects in the Galactic Center: The evidence for a boson
star, Speaker: Amitai Bin-Nun, Date: 02/04/2011;
11. Topic: Third Generation Detectors, Speaker: Manuela Campanelli, Date: 11/12/2010;
12. Topic: Discussion on 3rd Generation Gravitational Wave Detectors, date: 11/05/2010;
13. Topic: Discussion on 3rd Generation Gravitational Wave Detectors, Speaker: Manuela Campanelli
(RIT), Date: 10/22/2010;
14. Topic: Kinked Scalar Fields in Warped Extra Dimensions, Speaker: Eric West, Date: 10/15/2010;
15. Topic: Computing PhD Program: Vision and Focus, Speaker: Pengcheng Shi (RIT), Date: 10/08/2010;
16. Topic: Tidal Breakup of Binary Stars in the Galactic Center, Speaker: Fabio Antonini (RIT),
09/17/2010;
17. Topic: Seminar by Chad Hanna, Speaker: Chad Hanna (Caltech), 09/10/2010;
18. Topic: Evovling one-hundred-to-one black-hole binaries with fully nonlinear numerical relativity,
Speaker: Carlos Lousto (RIT), Date: 09/03/2010;
19. Topic: The Einstein Toolkit, Speaker: Erik Schnetter (LSU), Date: 08/27/2010;
20. Topic: Spectropolarimetric evidence for a kicked supermassive black hole in the Quasar E1821+643,
Speaker: Andrew Robinson (RIT), Date: 08/20/2010;
21. Topic: Berger-Oliger AMR, Speaker: Bruno Mundim (RIT), 08/13/2010;
22. Topic: Gravitational Wave Searches with LIGO and Virgo: Continuous Waves and Stochastic
Backgrounds, Speaker: John Whelan (RIT), Date: 07/30/2010;
23. Topic: Beyond MOND, Speaker: Scott Noble (RIT), Date: 07/02/2010.
Journal Clubs
Journal clubs are organized biweekly by postdoctoral researcher Nakano for all researchers and students
in the center to help them keep up with the literature produced by others who work in their field. These
help make the student become more familiar with the advanced literature in their new field of study. In
addition, these journal clubs help improve the students' skills of understanding and debating current
topics of active interest in their field. Last year, we reviewed more than 40 papers overall.
Conferences, meetings and workshops
Center F&A return funds are also used to co-sponsor
one or two annual workshops to increase
collaboration venues and the visibility of our research
programs.

The Carpet Developer workshop was hosted by
the CCRG in the RIT's Student Innovation Center
on August 23-27, 2010. The workshop was cosponsored by two NSF PRAC awards OCI-
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
0941653, OCI-0832606. The aim of the workshop was to convene code developers of the
Carpet/Cactus numerical relativity infrastructure together with users and high-performancecomputing (HPC) specialists to discuss and implement new adaptive-mesh-refinement (AMR)
algorithms, aimed at improving the performance of numerical relativity codes for astrophysics
applications in current and future high-end petascale architectures, such as the NCSA's Blue Waters.
The workshop was co-organized by Mundim, Campanelli, and Erik Schnetter (LSU) with help of
Bindal.

The Astrophysical Black-Hole Mergers Workshop was held on June 27-29, 2011. The workshop was
organized by Campanelli, Noble and Zlochower with the help of Bindal. It was co-sponsored by NSF
AST-1028087 (10228111). The workshop brought together numerical relativists working on the
Einstein Toolkit with computational astrophysicists working on accretion physics. Topics included
the modeling of plasmas in the strong-field, highly dynamic regime of black-hole mergers. All the RIT
co-PIs gave talks related to CIGR, in particular black-hole and MHD evolutions, and Bruno Mundim
presented the Einstein Toolkit to the larger Astrophysics community.
Educational Activities
Graduate Research
Center’s faculty are currently affiliated with four RIT's graduate programs:
 The PhD and MS in Astrophysical Sciences and Technology
 The PhD in Computing and Information Sciences (CIS)
 The MS in Applied and Computational Mathematics (ACM)
 The MS in Computer Science (CS)
Last year, there were four AST PhD graduate students, Fabio Antonini (supervisor: Merritt), Marcelo
Ponce (supervisor: Zlochower), Ian Ruchlin (supervisor: Lousto), Prabath Peiris (supervisors:
Faber/Whelan), Billy Vazquez (supervisor: Campanelli). There were 2 CS MS graduate students, Julio
Espinal and John Kaeuper (supervisor: Bischof).



Fabio Antonini, defended his PhD thesis “Dynamical processes near the supermassive black hole at
the galactic center” (supervisor Merritt) on June 17,2011.
All graduate students presented multiple times their works at the AST graduate research Jamboree
sympositium, the RIT annual graduate research symposium, CCRG and Astronomy informal lunches.
Marcelo Ponce gave two external presentations at the annual meeting of the American Physical
Society (April 2011) and the 20th Midwest Relativity Meeting (November 2011).
Undergraduate Research
We engage a number of bright undergraduate students (tens each year) in collaborative research
projects with center's members. These students are exposed to world-class research in areas of
theoretical astrophysics, gravitational physics and applied mathematics. Students also learn critical skills
in operating massively parallel computers, high-performance computing (HPC) and code optimization,
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
visualization of complex 3-dimensional data. Scientific results and visualizations obtained by students
are presented in research symposiums, scientific seminars and conferences, and included in publications
with faculty and researchers. Last year specific activities included:

Two undergraduate students in gravitational wave astrophysics, Jeremy Berke and Anthony
Castiglia, working respectively with Campanelli and Whelan, presented their research at the RIT
undergraduate research symposium.

Alexander Dong, a first year undergraduate Student, and Bischof, presented a paper at the
International Conference on Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality 2011

Additionally, Bischof supervised 9 undergraduate students to conduct research on distributed high
performance file systems, data visualization with Mays, a control of the view into a virtual world
with an iPad, as part of an NSF REU Site award (CCF-0851743) of which Bischof is PI.
Outreach Activities
The CCRG is committed to an active participation in outreach activities that engage the general public
through our presentations, magazine articles, imagery, movies, videos, visits and more. Last year
outreach activities are reported here below:

Bischof and Campanelli, in collaboration with faculty of the RIT's National Institute for the Deaf at
RIT, have submitted an NSF Communicating Research to Public Audiences (CRPA) in April 2011. The
project, entitled “Astrophysics and Dance - Engaging Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing, and Hearing Individuals
in Science Education” will leverage the experience and talents of researchers, scientists, artists and
educators to bring the excitement of cutting-edge scientific research on gravitational wave
astrophysics to an audience consisting of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and adults and members
of the general public. This proposal has been recommended for funding by the NSF.

The entire CCRG team, under Bischof leadership, participated in the annual ``Imagine RIT" festival,
with an exhibit, entitled "Space Monsters in 3D: three-dimensional visualizations of black holes,
interactive game with black holes (May 7, 2011). The exhibition, which used 3-dimensional
visualizations of numerical relativity simulations, was designed to be educational for visitors of all
ages and knowledge level. More than 30.000 visitors attended the event.

The entire CCRG team participated in the RIT’s Research Magazine 2010 entitled “New Wave
Astronomy” which featured their research and the CCRG. Campanelli also participated in the
production of a video associated to the online research article which was shown in Channel 5.

Faber gave a presentation and led a Q&A session for the Four E Science Club, composed of local
home-schooled students from the Rochester area, about gravitational waves and black holes.

Faber (PI) and Campanelli won a NASA ROSES ATFP Outreach grant to support the Rochester Science
cafe, the city's premier venue for the public to interact with scientists conducting cutting-edge
research. Faber, as co-organizer, with David Goldfarb of UofR's biology department, helped to
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
arrange the following talks, each of which was interpreted for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
community:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
September 28, 2010: “The science and folly of lifespan extending drugs”, Dr. David S. Goldfarb,
Professor of Biology, Biochemistry and Biophysics, Biomedical, Genetics and Oncology,
University of Rochester
October 26, 2010: "Robots: What can we expect from them?", Dr. Zack Butler, Associate
Professor of Computer Science, RIT
November 30, 2010: “Action video games as exemplary learning tools”, Dr. Daphne Bavelier,
Professor Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Imaging Sciences, Associate Director Rochester Center
for Brain Imaging, University of Rochester
January 25, 2011: "Personalized medicine: Tailoring health care in the information age", Robert
W. West, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, SUNY
Upstate Medical University
February 22, 2011: "Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: Why Size Matters?", Dr. Todd Krauss,
Professor, Department of Chemistry, Institute of Optics, Biophysics, Structural and
Computational Biology Program, Director, Materials Science Program, University of Rochester
"Visions of the Multiverse", Dr. Steven Manly, Professor of Physics, University of Rochester
May 24, 2011: “Sustainable Mobility: Path to Energy Security and Lower Greenhouse Gas
Emissions”, Dr. Thomas Trabold, Research Associate Professor, Golisano Institute for
Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology
June 28, 2011: ""Mathematics in nature: Modeling patterns in the natural world", Dr. John
Adam, Designated University Professor of Mathematics for excellence in teaching
Old Dominon University
Computer Facilities
There are two clusters in the CCRG laboratory (74-2060):

The "gravitySimulator," a special-purpose 32-node supercomputer that achieves speeds of 4 Tflops
in solving the gravitational N-body problem. GravitySimulator was purchased in 2004 through an
NSF MRI award (AST-0821141). Three stand-alone GRAPE-6 computers are also been added in 2009
to complement the computing power of the gravitySimulator. This cluster is solely used by Merritt
and his collaborators.

NewHorizons is a 736 processors Linux cluster equipped with Infiniband interconnects and a total of
2.9 TB of RAM. The cluster is optimized for numerical relativity simulations to achieve speeds up to
1.2 Tflop, while utilizing large amount of memory and being able to work with large data sets.
NewHorizons started its operation in fall 2007 and was funded by different source of funding for a
total of $741,165:
(1) Campanelli’s start-up funds provided $100,000 in Spring 2007;
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CCRG Annual Report 2011
(2) An NSF grant PHY-0722315 (PI: Campanelli) transferred from the University of Texas by
Campanelli provided an additional $45,000 in Spring 2007 to purchase an entire rack of
nodes;
(3) An NSF MRI grant PHY-0722703 (PI Campanelli, co-PIs: Lousto, Zlochower, Merritt)
provided additional $331,974 to purchase additional 3 racks of nodes in Fall 2007;
(4) F&A return funds (PI Campanelli) provided $20,000 for common storage in Fall 2008;
(5) An NSF SCREMS award DMS-0820923 (PI: Zlochower, co-PI: Faber) provided $86,191 in
fall 2009 to add 16 compute nodes;
(6) An NSF grant AST-1028087 (PI: Campanelli, co-PIs: Noble, Zlochower) provided $157,000
to supplement the cluster with 200TB storage pool and 240 computational cores were
purchased in summer 2011 and will be added this fall to the cluster.
Cluster and Laboratory Upgrades: toward greener and more sustainable technologies.
This past year we designed and purchased a storage, simulation, and
data analysis extension to the NewHorizons cluster as part of the
NSF AST-1028087 grant in collaboration with Johns Hopkins
University (PI: Campanelli). The extension consists of a new 200 TB
storage pool, 240 computational cores (in five 2U servers), and a
QDR InfiniBand fabric, allowing simulations requiring up to 1 TB of
RAM (using only the upgraded hardware). This high-density, lowcost extension will enable us to perform many of the demanding
simulations and data analysis required for this grant. The new
compute and storage nodes are connected to the existing
NewHorizons cluster, allowing us to leverage the existing
computational resources and cooling laboratory infrastructure. With
this upgrade, when using the entire cluster, we will be able to run simulations requiring up to 736
computational cores and 2.9 TB of RAM. Prior to purchasing this upgrade, we tested the new
configuration against our existing NewHorizons cluster. The upgraded infrastructure was found to be a
factor of 3 faster than the existing NewHorizons infrastructure. It also lowers the energy consumption by
a factor 5 with respect to the older processors.
We also have been working with FMS at RIT and a green technology company, Emerald Technologies, to
further explore the renovation and extension of the cooling capacity in room 70-2060. We will report on
this next year. However, we note that the newest processors are much faster and much greener than
the old ones. The new intel Xeon processors provide a 93% reduction in server energy costs.
Space Renovation
Our space needs have increased last year, mostly due to the arrival of 2 additional postdoctoral
researchers in the group. Currently, one office (room 78-1015) is been upgraded to accommodate office
space for 5 postdoctoral researchers. The computer storage room and workroom continues to provide
space for 2 graduate students and one student administrative staff assistant. CCRG F&A funds for
approximately $7,000 will be used for these renovation costs.
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