- 284 Phillips Hall, Department of Physics, CB 3255
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 USA
- evans {AT} physics { DOT } unc { DOT } edu
Professional Appointments
- Agnew H. Bahnson, Jr. Professor of Physics, 2015 -- present
- Associate Department Chair, 2006-2009, 2012-2017
- Director of Graduate Studies, 2006-2009
- Visiting Full Professor, University College Dublin, 2023-2028
- Professor, UNC-CH, 1999-2015
- Associate Professor, UNC-CH, 1994-1999
- Assistant Professor, UNC-CH, 1989-1994
- Research Associate, California Institute of Technology, 1986-1989
- Research Associate, University of Illinois, 1984-1986
Awards and Honors
- Visiting Full Professor, University College Dublin, 2023-2028
- Fellow of the American Physical Society, 2017
- Agnew H. Bahnson, Jr. Distinguished Professor, 2015
- Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction, 2014
- Senior Visiting Scientist, Max Planck Institute for
Gravitational Physics, 2013
- Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Award, 1994
- Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 1991
- Presidential Young Investigator, 1990
- Associated Western Universities Graduate Fellow, 1982
Education
- Ph.D. - University of Texas at Austin, 1984 (Physics)
- B.A. - Vanderbilt University, 1976 (Physics and Mathematics)
Lecture Courses
- Phys 631 - Mathematical Methods of Theoretical Physics
- Phys 701 - Classical Dynamics
- Phys 712 - Classical Electrodynamics
- Phys 722 - Quantum Mechanics II
- Phys 832 - General Relativity
- Phys 193 - Scientific Computation (Replaced by Phys 331)
- Astr 702 - High-Energy Astrophysics
- Astr 031 - Descriptive Astronomy (Replaced by Astr 101 and 102)
- Astr 102 - Introduction to Astronomy: Stars, Galaxies & Cosmology
Recent PhD Students
- Jezreel Castillo, PhD 2025
- Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Southampton, UK, 2026-
- Postdoctoral Scientist, University of North Carolina, 2025-2026
- Nishita Jadoo, PhD 2023 (Co-advised by J.D. Brown and C.R. Evans)
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Idaho, 2023-
- Reece Boston, PhD 2022
- Scientific Staff, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2023-
- Postdoctoral Researcher, UNC, 2022
- Chris Munna, PhD 2020
- Senior Machine Learning Scientist, OneSix, Inc, 2023-
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, MIT, 2021
- Zach Nasipak, PhD 2020
- Senior Research Fellow, University of Southampton, 2024-
- NASA NPP Postdoctoral Program Fellow, Goddard SFC, 2021-2024
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brown University, Fall 2020
- Kyle Slinker, PhD 2017
- Physics Instructor, North Carolina School of Science and Math, 2017-
- Erik Forseth, PhD 2016
- Portfolio Manager, Cubist Systematic Strategies, 2024--
- Quant. Research Analyst, Graham Capital Management, L.P., 2016-2024
- Thomas Osburn, PhD 2016
- Associate Professor, SUNY Geneseo, 2019-
- Assistant Professor, Oxford College of Emory University, 2016-2019
- Roseanne Cheng, PhD 2012
- Affiliate Research Scientist, Space Science Institute, 2023-
- Staff Scientist, T3 Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2019-2023
- Nicholas C. Metropolis Fellow, Los Alamos National Lab, 2017-2019
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, Johns Hopkins, 2014-2017
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, Georgia Tech, 2012-2014
-
Seth Hopper, PhD 2011
- Associate Professor, Earlham College, 2017-
- Postdoc Res Assoc, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon, 2015-2017
- Postdoc Res Assoc, University College Dublin, 2014-2015
- Postdoc Res Assoc, Max Planck, Albert Einstein Institute, 2011-2014
- Michael Good, PhD 2011
- Associate Professor, Nazarbayev University, 2014-
- Postdoc Res Assoc, Nanyang Technological Univ, Singapore, 2011-2014
- Valery Tenyotkin, PhD 2009
- Software engineer, San Francisco Bay Area, 2009-
- Travis Garrett, PhD 2007
- Staff Physicist, Air Force Research Laboratory, Albuquerque, 2023-
- Staff Physicist, Stellar Science, Inc., Albuquerque, 2011-2023
- Postdoc Res Assoc, Perimeter Institute, 2009-2011
- Postdoc Res Assoc, LSU, 2007-2009
- Mark Hannam, PhD 2003 (Co-advised by G. Cook and C. Evans)
- Professor, Cardiff University, 2015-
- STFC Advanced Fellow: Cardiff University, 2010-2015
- Brian Brill, PhD 2001
- Ab Initio Software, 2001-
Research Interests
- Gravitational physics & relativistic astrophysics
- Self-force, gravitational waves, and binary black hole inspirals
- Tidal disruption of stars by massive black holes
- Numerical relativity, critical phenomena in gravitational collapse
- Pulsars and compact binary systems
- Computational fluid dynamics and magnetohydrodynamics
Recent Publications
-
Post-Newtonian expansion of gravitational energy and angular momentum fluxes: inclined spherical orbits about a Kerr black hole, Castillo, J.C., Evans, C.R., Kavanagh, C., Neef, J., Ottewill, A., and Wardell, B., Physical Review D111, 084004 (2025), arXiv:2411.09700
-
Tidal heating and torquing of the primary black hole in eccentric-orbit, nonspinning, extreme-mass-ratio inspirals to 22PN order, Munna, C., Evans, C.R., and Forseth, E., Physical Review D108, 044039 (2023), arXiv:2306.12481
-
Post-Newtonian expansion of the spin-precession invariant for eccentric-orbit nonspinning extreme-mass-ratio inspirals to 9PN and e16, Munna, C. and Evans, C.R., Physical Review D106, 044058 (2022), arXiv:2206.04085
-
High-order post-Newtonian expansion of the redshift invariant for eccentric-orbit non-spinning extreme-mass-ratio inspirals, Munna, C. and Evans, C.R., Physical Review D106, 044004 (2022), arXiv:2203.13832
-
Determination of new coefficients in the angular momentum and energy fluxes at infinity to 9PN for eccentric Schwarzschild extreme-mass-ratio inspirals using mode-by-mode fitting, Munna, C., Evans, C.R., Hopper, S., and Forseth, E., Physical Review D102, 024047 (2020), arXiv:2005.03044
-
Eccentric-orbit EMRI radiation: Analytic forms of leading-logarithm and subleading-logarithm flux terms at high PN orders, Munna, C. and Evans, C.R., Physical Review D100, 104060 (2019)
-
Repeated faint quasinormal bursts in extreme-mass-ratio inspiral waveforms: Evidence from frequency-domain scalar self-force calculations on generic Kerr orbits,
Nasipak, Z., Osburn, T., and Evans, C.R., Physical Review D100, 064008 (2019)
-
Evolution of small-mass-ratio binaries with a spinning secondary,
Warburton, N., Osburn, T., and Evans, C.R., Physical Review D96, 084057 (2017)
-
Eccentric-orbit extreme-mass-ratio inspiral gravitational wave energy fluxes to 7PN order,
Forseth, E., Evans, C. R., and Hopper, S., Physical Review D93, 064058 (2016)
-
Highly eccentric inspirals into a black hole,
Osburn, T., Warburton, N., and Evans, C. R., Physical Review D93, 064024 (2016)
-
Fast spectral source integration in black hole perturbation calculations,
Hopper, S., Forseth, E., Osburn, T., and Evans, C. R., Physical Review D92, 044048 (2015)
-
Lorenz gauge gravitational self-force calculations of eccentric binaries using a frequency domain procedure,
Osburn, T., Forseth, E., Evans, C. R., and Hopper, S., Physical Review D90, 104031 (2014)
-
Relativistic effects in the tidal interaction between a white dwarf and a massive black hole in Fermi normal coordinates,
Cheng, R. M. and Evans, C. R., Physical Review D87, 104010 (2013)
-
Metric perturbations from eccentric orbits on a Schwarzschild black hole. I. Odd-parity Regge-Wheeler to Lorenz gauge transformation and two new methods to circumvent the Gibbs phenomenon,
Hopper, S. and Evans, C. R., Physical Review D87, 064008 (2013)
-
Gravitational perturbations and metric reconstruction: Method of extended homogeneous solutions applied to eccentric orbits on a Schwarzschild black hole,
Hopper, S. and Evans, C. R., Physical Review D82, 084010 (2010)
Selected Publications
-
Simulation of Magnetohydrodynamic Flows: A Constrained Transport Method,
Evans, C. R. and Hawley, J. F., Astrophysical Journal, 332, 659 (1988)
-
The Tidal Disruption of a Star by a Massive Black Hole,
Evans, C. R. and Kochanek, C. S., Astrophysical Journal Letters, 346, L13 (1989)
-
Critical Phenomena and Self-Similarity in the Gravitational Collapse of Radiation Fluid,
Evans, C. R. and Coleman, J., Physical Review Letters, 72, 1782 (1994)
-
Critical Behavior and Scaling in Vacuum Axisymmetric Gravitational Collapse,
Abrahams, A. M. and Evans, C. R., Physical Review Letters, 70, 2980 (1993)
PhD Dissertation
