Astrophysics News & Events

Gravitational waves carry unique information about the compact objects that generate them and the underlying gravitational theory describing them, which has allowed us to test General Relativity and the nature of black holes with unprecedented precision. In addition, they can also bear precious information about the astrophysical environments where binaries coalesce.

Analytical predictions of the gravitational waveform (amplitude and phasing) are key ingredients for building the templates used in gravitational detectors.

Asymmetric binaries provide a unique phenomenology within the family-tree of coalescing systems, which makes them golden targets for future gravitational wave interferometers. Assembled by a compact object orbiting around a more massive body, they can emit gravitational waves from the milliHz to the Hz regime, depending on the size of their components.

New horizon-scale images of the Galactic Center black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) recently published by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) allow for new strong-field tests of the Kerr metric in a previously unexplored regime. I will discuss the recent EHT observations of Sgr A* with a particular focus on how these new results can be used to test fundamental physics.

Resonances are ubiquitous in nature. In this talk, I will focus on resonances due to the interaction of two black holes orbiting a central massive black hole. Such tidal resonances will generically occur for Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs), if nearby compact objects exist.