Prof. Ehud Nakar works on a range of topics in theoretical and numerical high energy astrophysics and in particular the physical processes that are active in sources of high energy radiation, cosmic-rays, neutrinos and gravitational waves. Among the astrophysical phenomena that are being explored are neutron-star mergers, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae and soft gamma-repeaters. Physical processes that are studied include collisionless and radiation-mediated shocks, shock breakouts, particle acceleration, relativistic hydrodynamics and radiative transfer. The study combines high-performance computing numerical simulations and analytic work.
Research achievements include: Developing the theory of relativistic shock breakouts; deriving the structure of the outflow in the first binary neutron star merger; theoretical interpretation of the first observation of short gamma-ray bursts.
Future directions include: Using the combination of gravitational waves measured by LIGO/VIRGO and the electromagnetic signal to study the physics and astrophysics of neutron star mergers.
