Gr@v is a team of researchers, based at the Mathematics and Physics Department of Aveiro University, Portugal, working on strong gravity and high energy physics. The group was established in 2010. In January 2015 Gr@v integrated the FCT funded CIDMA research unit (UIDB/04106/2020 and UIDP/04106/2020), as the Gravitational Geometry and Dynamics research group. In January 2025 colleagues from the U. Algarve joined CIDMA and the group.
The 2015 paper highlights of the International Journal of Modern Physics D, includes the paper "Asymptotically flat black holes with scalar hair: a review" by Gr@v researchers C. Herdeiro and E. Radu.
The annuncement about the detection of gravitational waves got the attention of Portuguese media, with some contributions from our group:
Interview in Jornal 2, 11th February 2016
On February 11th 2016, the LIGO collaboration announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves. Our group warmly congratulates LIGO for this extraordinary achievement, which opens up access to a new layer of the physical reality!
A new textbook on "Quantum Mechanics", in portuguese, for undergraduate (typically third year) students, has just been released by the Aveiro University publisher, authored by Gr@v member C. Herdeiro.
The book is complemented by recorded lectures and problem classes, the latter given by Gr@v member João Rosa, which can be found here.
Gr@v researchers have found that there are only two equilibrium possibilities for the spin of black hole binaries, and that they are similar to the equilibria observed for the spin of the Moon, which was identified by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1693. The results were published this week in MNRAS Letters.
This year's Chilean school on gravitation took place in Concepción, from 4-8 January, focused on black holes and solitons. One of the invited lecturers was Gr@v member C. Herdeiro, delivering a five lectures course on "Asymptotically flat black holes with scalar hair in four spacetime dimensions."
Exactly one hundred years after Einstein's completion of the general theory of relativity, Gr@v gathered some collaborators and friends to celebrate Gr@vity!
The cover of the Physical Review Letters Vol. 115, issue 21 (November 20th, 2015), exhibits one of the figures of the Gr@v paper Shadows of Kerr black holes with scalar hair [Pedro V. P. Cunha et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 211102 (2015)] showing the lensing of a boson star with a light ring.
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has awarded one of the 2015 prizes for stimulating research to Gr@v Ph.D. student Pedro Cunha, distinguishing his work/project on black hole shadows. Congratulations Pedro!
Pedro Cunha did his undergraduate in Physics and M.Sc in Astrophysics, both at the University of Coimbra. His M.Sc. thesis was already done within Gr@v under the supervision of C. Herdeiro. Pedro is pursuing his Ph.D. studies at the University of Aveiro and IST-Lisbon.
The paper "Shadows of Kerr black holes with scalar hair" by P. Cunha, C. Herdeiro, E. Radu and H. Rúnarsson has been accepted in Physical Review Letters. This work shows Kerr black holes with scalar hair can exhibit new types of shadows in black hole physics. Observing black hole shadows is the primary target of the Event Horizon Telescope.