Distinguished Professor Manuela Campanelli and her collaborators use supercomputer simulations to study black hole mergers and binary neutron star mergers, leading to important discoveries about the universe\u2019s most extreme phenomena. Shown here, Campanelli works with graduate students in the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation. Photo credit: Scott Hamilton, RIT.<\/p>\n Led by Lorenzo Ennoggi and his advisor Manuela Campanelli, distinguished professor of astrophysics, members of RIT\u2019s Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation<\/a>\u00a0(CCRG) have published two papers in American Physical Society journals.<\/p>\n In the\u00a0first paper<\/a>, the team looked at two spinning black holes accreting gas and generating powerful electromagnetic signals. Through complex simulations, it was confirmed that there is a steady decrease in the system\u2019s luminosity, but then at the time of merger, there is an abrupt spike.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were not able to do this simulation with the full physics that Lorenzo has been able to include, so they were not getting this rise in luminosity at the merger,\u201d Campanelli explained. \u201cWhat Lorenzo has discovered is that there is a bump at the merger, and the bump is correlated between both the jet and the light from the disk. That bump is important because it will allow mergers to be identified for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n Campanelli further explained that while it is known that galaxies collide and their central black holes collide, they have not been observed. Getting the right signal for these events, as Ennoggi calculated, is needed to be able to identify the mergers and then observe them.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to repeat the simulations quite a few times,\u201d said Ennoggi. \u201cWhen I finally had something that worked and we managed to find something of relevance from the physics point-of-view, I was very happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Current astrophysical sciences and technology Ph.D. student, also advised by Campanelli, and co-author Maria Chiara de Simone further explained, \u201cWe are in the process of getting ready to help in observations because the gravitational wave emission and the electromagnetic emission together help with localization so we can get more information about galaxy evolution in a broader aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n This research was supported by computational resources at the Texas Advanced Computing Center<\/a> (TACC), including the Frontera and Vista supercomputers, and by additional resources from the Rochester Institute of Technology\u2019s BlueSky, Green Prairies, and Lagoon clusters.<\/p>\n \u201cI would love for the public to understand that supercomputers act as the ultimate \u2019virtual laboratories\u2019 for the extreme universe,\u201d Campanelli said. \u201cHigh performance computing provides the only method we have to solve the fundamental equations governing gravity and matter in these environments.\u201d<\/p>\n Seeing the Light From Black Holes<\/p>\n In the second paper<\/a>, researchers conducted simulations that may provide a new way to identify supermassive black hole mergers through photon emissions.<\/p>\n Black hole mergers are identified primarily by gravitational waves, but these events also radiate photons from thermal gas and photons from relativistic electrons energized by relativistic jets. The simulations conducted showed that during a merger of two black holes with the same mass and spin, photon radiation decreases as the black holes are drawn together, but the light increases sharply during mergers. Such a distinct signature could help identify such mergers.<\/p>\n Computational resources were provided by TACC\u2019s Frontera supercomputer, with additional support from RIT\u2019s BlueSky, Green Prairies, and Lagoon clusters. The publications capped four years of Ennoggi\u2019s Ph.D. research. He moved back to Italy after graduating from RIT and now works in high performance computing applied to oil and gas. De Simone is continuing his work on her Ph.D. journey.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m continuing Lorenzo\u2019s work and extending the parameter space of our simulations,\u201d de Simone said. \u201cThe idea is to produce simulations that help us with observations. We can work together with the observation side of the astrophysics world and get more exciting results.\u201d<\/p>\n Gamma-ray Burst Mysteries From Star Mergers<\/p>\n Campanelli and colleagues also recently published findings that shed new light on the long-standing question of how binary neutron star mergers generate short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), among the most energetic phenomena in the universe.<\/p>\n By employing an unprecedentedly low-density numerical atmosphere, their simulations demonstrated that a metastable massive neutron star remnant collapsing into a black hole 25\u201350 milliseconds post-merger successfully launch incipient jets. These outflows exhibit terminal Lorentz factors and Poynting-flux luminosities consistent with those observed in short GRBs.<\/p>\n Probing space for cosmic collisions: NASA James Webb Space Telescope (top left), NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (top right), NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (bottom). Image credits: NASA, NSF, DOE<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a crucial finding because it highlights the critical role of the highly dynamic post-merger environment in shaping jet propagation, directly linking our computational models to the violent bursts telescopes observe in the night sky,\u201d Campanelli said.<\/p>\n Simulating these events proved to be an immense undertaking, requiring the coupling of Numerical Relativity to solve the full Einstein equations with 3D General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) across vast spatial and temporal scales.<\/p>\n Cosmic Heavy Lifting From Frontera, Vista, Horizon Supercomputers<\/p>\n \u201cFor supermassive black hole binaries\u2014as explored in our recent Physical Review Letters paper and companion work on post-merger recoil\u2014a major challenge is accurately modeling incredibly complex gas dynamics, circumbinary disks, and radiation transport,\u201d Campanelli explained. The challenges involved tracking intricate fluid mechanics, such as gas \u201csloshing\u201d between minidisks, and predicting the sudden luminous flares that occur at the exact moment of merger.<\/p>\n \u201cNational Science Foundation (NSF)-funded supercomputers Frontera and Vista provided the essential, heavy-lifting CPU and GPU architectures necessary to handle these high-resolution, multi-scale computations,\u201d she said. \u201cWithout their immense processing power and memory capacity, smoothly tracking these systems from the long inspiral phase completely through to post-merger relaxation would be impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n The team\u2019s work will continue on Horizon, the flagship system of the U.S. NSF Leadership Class Computing Facility\u200b, as it enters its early user phase at TACC in summer 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are continuously developing open-source, exascale-optimized frameworks (like the Einstein Toolkit) to push these models further, and the transition to Horizon will be a true gamechanger,\u201d Campanelli concluded. \u201cIt will enable us to explore a vastly expanded parameter space\u2014including highly unequal mass ratios, extreme black hole spins, and orbital eccentricities\u2014at unprecedented resolutions and over much longer physical timescales. Horizon\u2019s capabilities will allow us to drastically improve the precision of our synthetic multi-messenger predictions, allowing us to transition from modeling idealized scenarios to creating highly accurate templates for specific, real-world astronomical observations.\u201d<\/p>\n Adapted from a press release<\/a> by Mollie Radzinski, RIT.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/web-ccrgmanuelastudents.jpg__1080x720_q85_subsampling-2-300x200.jpg\")
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