Current Research Projects (updated 10/7/03)
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(from SF0 3D) 
This is a living document. As each item in the lists below becomes fleshed out, I will activate a link to a more ample description and/or preprints of scientific papers. Projects that have already been published or accepted in the scientific journals are linked from my main web page and do not appear here.

3D accretion tori in the Kerr metric

A number of simulations are now in process to study the general properties of accretion tori in the Kerr metric. This is an extension of work carried out by John Hawley, Steve Balbus, and collaborators on the magnetorotational instability (MRI) and its role in accretion disks. 
The projects shown here use a newly developed general relativistic MHD code (GRMHD) to study accretion into black holes. Previous simulations relied on pseudo-Newtonian gravitational potentials. We are now in a position to study the effect of  the strong gravitational fields near Kerr black holes. 
  1. Survey of initially near-keplerian disks - KD models
  2. Jets in KD Simulations
  3. Ray-traced images of accretion flows 
  4. Survey of disk models at large initial radii - WF models
  5. Near-isothermal disk models
  6. Magnetized tilted disks (Bardeen-Petterson effect)
  7. Ultra-high-resolution simulations of  keplerian disk models

Code Development

A number of projects are in the works to complement the development of the GRMHD code, and to improve its performance. 
  1. General relativistic (back-reacting) MHD code is now under development (Fall 2003 onward).