Professor Ulrich Sperhake

Career

2012-date: Lecturer, DAMTP, University of Cambridge
2010-2012: Ramon y Cajal Researcher, Institute of Space Sciences, CSIC-IEEC Barcelona
2008-2010: Senior Postdoc, Division of Physics, Maths and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology
2005-2008: Postdoc, Theoretical Physics Institute, University of Jena
2002-2005: Postdoc, Center for Gravitational Wave Physics, Penn State University
2001-2002: Postdoc, Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
1998-2001: PhD, School of Mathematics, University of Southampton

Research

Ulrich Sperhake is a member of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics General Relativity research group. His current research interests are Numerical Relativity, Black Holes as sources of Gravitational Waves, High-Energy Collisions of Black Holes.

Selected Publications

M.Kesden, D.Gerosa, R.O'Shaughnessy, E.Berti, U.Sperhake, "Effective potentials and morphological transitions for binary black-hole spin precession", Phys. Rev. Lett. 114 (2015) 081103
U.Sperhake, E.Berti, V.Cardoso and F.Pretorius, "Universality, maximum radiation and absorption in high-energy collisions of black holes with spin", Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 (2011) 161103
C.D.Ott, C.Reisswig, E.Schnetter, E.O'Connor, U.Sperhake, F.Loeffler, P.Diener, E.Abdikamalov, I.Hawke and A.Burrows, "Dynamics and Gravitational Wave Signature of Collapsar Formation", Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 (2011) 161103
M.Zilhao, H.Witek, U.Sperhake, V.Cardoso, L.Gualtieri, C.Herdeiro and A.Nerozzi, "Numerical relativity for D dimensional axially symmetric space-times: formalism and code tests", Phys. Rev. D 81 (2010) 084052
U.Sperhake, V.Cardoso, F.Pretorius, E.Berti, T.Hinderer and N. Yunes, "Cross section, final spin and zoom-whirl behavior in high-energy black hole collisions", Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 (2009) 131102
B.Aylott et al., "Testing gravitational-wave searches with numerical relativity waveforms: Results from the first Numerical INJection Analysis (NINJA) project", Class. Quantum Grav. 26 (2009) 165008
U.Sperhake, V.Cardoso, F.Pretorius, E.Berti and J.A.Gonzalez, "The high-energy collision of two black holes", Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 (2008) 161101
P.Ajith et al., "A Template bank for gravitational waveforms from coalescing binary black holes. I. Non-spinning binaries", Phys. Rev. D 77 (2008) 104017
J.A.Gonzalez, M.D.Hannam, U.Sperhake, B.Bruegmann and S.Husa, "Supermassive kicks for spinning black holes", Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 231101
J.A.Gonzalez, U.Sperhake, B.Bruegmann, M.D.Hannam and S.Husa, "The maximum kick from nonspinning black-hole binary inspiral", Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 091101
E.Berti, V.Cardoso, J.A. Gonzalez, U.Sperhake, M.Hannam, S.Husa and B.Bruegmann, "Inspiral, merger and ringdown of unequal mass black hole binaries: A multipolar analysis", Phys. Rev. D 76 (2007) 064034
U.Sperhake, "Binary black-hole evolutions of excision and puncture data", Phys. Rev. D 76 (2007) 104015

Publications

Black-hole binary simulations: The mass ratio 10:1

JA González, U Sperhake, B Brügmann

– Physical Review D

(2009)

79,

124006

(doi: 10.1103/physrevd.79.124006)

Status of NINJA: The Numerical INJection Analysis project

L Cadonati, B Aylott, JG Baker, WD Boggs, M Boyle, PR Brady, DA Brown, B Brügmann, LT Buchman, A Buonanno, J Camp, M Campanelli, J Centrella, S Chatterji, N Christensen, T Chu, P Diener, N Dorband, ZB Etienne, J Faber, S Fairhurst, B Farr, S Fischetti, G Guidi, LM Goggin, M Hannam, F Herrmann, I Hinder, S Husa, V Kalogera, D Keppel, LE Kidder, BJ Kelly, B Krishnan, P Laguna, CO Lousto, I Mandel, P Marronetti, R Matzner, ST McWilliams, KD Matthews, RA Mercer, SRP Mohapatra, AH Mroué, H Nakano, E Ochsner, Y Pan, L Pekowsky, HP Pfeiffer, D Pollney, F Pretorius, V Raymond, C Reisswig, L Rezzolla, O Rinne, C Robinson, C Röver, L Santamaría, B Sathyaprakash, MA Scheel, E Schnetter, J Seiler, SL Shapiro, D Shoemaker, U Sperhake, A Stroeer, R Sturani, W Tichy, YT Liu, M Van Der Sluys, JR Van Meter, R Vaulin, A Vecchio, J Veitch, A Viceré, JT Whelan, Y Zlochower

– Classical and Quantum Gravity

(2009)

26,

114008

(doi: 10.1088/0264-9381/26/11/114008)

Numerical Simulations of Compact Binary Systems

B Brügmann, JA González, MD Hannam, S Husa, U Sperhake

– HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, GARCH/MUNICH 2007

(2009)

(doi: 10.1007/978-3-540-69182-2_1)

Colliding black holes and gravitational waves

U Sperhake