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David Brown

Professor and Director of Undergraduate Programs

Specializes in Astrophysics and Relativity

Click here to view Dr. Brown's research website.

Contact Information

Physics Department
NC State University
Box 8202
Raleigh, NC 27695
Work Address: 400M Riddick Hall
Phone: (919) 515-7471


Areas of Interest

Ground based interferometer gravitational wave detectors such as LIGO and VIRGO are now operating at design sensitivities. Development is underway by NASA and the European Space Agency for LISA, a space based gravitational wave detector. We are at the beginning of a new era in astrophysics research as these detectors allow us to observe directly the bulk motions of matter in violent cosmological events such as black hole/black hole collisions. The success of both ground and space based detectors will require accurate numerical modeling, although for different reasons. Because the target signals for ground based detectors are very weak, a clear theoretical understanding of the expected signals is needed to help separate signal from instrument noise. For the space based LISA detector, collisions between supermassive black holes, each with a billion times the mass of our sun, are expected to generate very strong gravitational waves that can be detected easily. Accurate theoretical modeling will be used to filter these large signals from the data stream, and in the process uncover weaker signals from other physically interesting gravitational wave sources.

I am currently working on a variety of theoretical and computational problems with the goal of improving numerical simulations of strongly gravitating systems.


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