In this talk, I aim to challenge persistent misconceptions surrounding Brans-Dicke and (Buchdahl's) pure Ricci-squared theories. Through concrete counterexamples in the form of new exact solutions, I will shed light on theoretical aspects related to the violation of the Weak Energy Condition, the construction of wormholes, and the revelation of novel structures within these spacetimes.
Within the NewFunFiCO network, coordinated by our group, we are co-organizing a workshop on fundamental fields and compact objects: new opportunities, at ICF - UNAM - Campus de Morelos, Mexico, from October 4-6 2023.
The Journées Relativistes de Tours, France, took place from 31 May - 2 June 2023 discussing the latest developments in the field. C. Herdeiro and E. Radu were two of the invited speakers.
Our group has received 1.6 million CPU-hours at the Navigator Cluster in Coimbra through the FCT call for Advanced Computing Projects. This project is led by Miguel Zilhão and is titled "Dynamics of bosonic stars" (ref. 2022.15804.CPCA.A2).
American Physical Society invited the authors of the paper "Exotic Compact Objects and the fate of the light ring instability" to participate in the APS Journal Club (JC), dedicated to selected papers published in Physical Review Letters. It was the first time this JC was dedicated to a gravity paper. The video recording of the session will be found in the JC webpage.
Our group coordinated the "Numerical Relativity and High Energy Physics" IRSES network (2012-2015). Here is a list of the global network meetings organized:
