I work at the interface of gravitational physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. My research is primarily focused on understanding strong field gravity, using the tools of numerical relativity.
Recent Publications
W. E. East "Cosmic censorship upheld in spheroidal collapse of collisionless matter" Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 231103 (2019) arXiv: 1901.04498
F. Pretorius and W. E. East "Black hole formation from the collision of plane-fronted gravitational waves" Phys. Rev. D 98, 084053 (2018) arXiv: 1807.11562
W. E. East "Massive boson superradiant instability of black holes: nonlinear growth, saturation, and gravitational radiation" Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 131104 (2018) arXiv: 1807.00043
H. Yang, W. E. East, V. Paschalidis, F. Pretorius, and R. F. P. Mendes "Evolution of highly eccentric binary neutron stars including tidal effects" Phys. Rev. D 98, 044007 (2018) arXiv: 1806.00158
W. E. East and H. Yang "The magnetosphere of a spinning black hole and the role of the current sheet" Phys. Rev. D 98, 023008 (2018) arXiv: 1805.05952
H. Yang, W. E. East, and L. Lehner "Can we distinguish low mass black holes in neutron star binaries?" Astrophys. J. Vol 856, 110, (2018) arXiv: 1710.05891
W. E. East, R. Wojtak, and T. Abel "Comparing fully general relativistic and Newtonian calculations of structure formation" Phys. Rev. D 97, 043509 (2018) arXiv: 1711.06681
W. E. East, J. Kearney, B. Shakya, H. Yoo, K. M. Zurek "Spacetime dynamics of a Higgs vacuum instability during inflation" Phys. Rev. D 95, 023526 (2017) arXiv: 1607.00381
W. E. East and F. Pretorius "Superradiant Instability and Backreaction of Massive Vector Fields around Kerr Black Holes" Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 041101 (2017) arXiv: 1704.04791
W. E. East "Superradiant instability of massive vector fields around spinning black holes in the relativistic regime" Phys. Rev. D 96, 024004 (2017) arXiv: 1705.01544
W. E. East, V. Paschalidis, and F. Pretorius "Equation of state effects and one-arm spiral instability in hypermassive neutron stars formed in eccentric neutron star mergers" Class. Quantum Grav. 33 no. 24, 244004 (2016) arXiv: 1609.00725
W. E. East, V. Paschalidis, F. Pretorius, and A. Tsokaros "Binary neutron star mergers: effects of spin and post-merger dynamics" arXiv: 1906.05288