A Montana State University gravitational physicist has received money for a research project that aims to answer questions about the universe.
NASA awarded $750,000 to Nicolas Yunes for his project “Exploring Extreme Gravity: Neutron Stars, Black Holes and Gravitational Waves.” Yunes is a founding member of the MSU eXtreme Gravity Institute, known as XGI, and an associate professor in the physics department. The award, which covers a three-year period, came from NASA’s Established Program to Simulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR.
Yunes’ project is one of 22 selected to receive EPSCoR grants for research and technology development in areas critical to NASA’s mission and one of 13 to receive the top award of $750,000.
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“This is very exciting,” Yunes said. “This grant will allow us to explore fundamental questions about gravity and our universe.”
Yunes said the award will also allow him to grow his research group within the eXtreme Gravity Institute.
“The institute has really become a hub for this kind of education and research in the Mountain West,” Yunes said.
“As a result, we’re attracting many great students, researchers and faculty to study here in Montana, and this NASA funding is indispensable to our growth and mission.”
The project will focus on improving tools to get as much astrophysics information as possible from X-ray data obtained with NASA’S Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, known as NICER, installed in June aboard the International Space Station. The explorer will provide high-precision measurements of neutron stars. Neutron stars are objects that contain ultra-dense matter at the threshold of collapse into black holes, according to NASA.
Researchers in Yunes’ group will work to create a framework to test Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity using X-ray data from NICER, as well as gravitational wave data gathered by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, a gravitational wave observatory in space.
“This will allow for consistency checks of Einstein’s theory and the search for modified gravity anomalies with neutron stars and black holes,” Yunes said.
Yunes said his project is directly related to NASA’s strategic mission to better understand the universe through observation and its mission of discovery and knowledge.
“The region of the universe where gravity is unbearably strong and dynamically changing – the extreme gravity universe – is one of the last unturned stones,” he said. “This is in part because extreme gravity objects, like neutron stars and black holes, are difficult to resolve due to their size and distance from Earth.”
Project co-investigators include XGI astrophysicist Bennett Link and gravitational physicist Neil Cornish, both professors in MSU’s physics department, as well as Holly Truitt, director of University of Montana’s Broader Impacts Group.
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