Strong Gravity News & Events
BLASTs in Physical Review Letters
The article "Stimulated axion decay in superradiant clouds around astrophysical black holes" (arXiv:1709.06581), co-authored by Gr@v member João Rosa and Tom Kephart (Vanderbilt University, USA), has been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters and will be highlighted as one of the PRL Editors' Suggestions (a distinction attributed to about one in six Letters).
GR course highlighted by Aveiro EPS Young Minds
The Aveiro University section of the EPS Young Minds, selected the General Relativity course they organised in the Fall term of 2017 at Aveiro U., in collaboration with Gr@v, as a reference event. This course will be highlighted in a poster presentation at the 7th Young Minds Leadership Meeting to take place in Prague in May 2018. Click "Read More" to find a link to the full poster.
Shadows of a quasi-static Black Hole binary
Black hole (BH) shadows in dynamical binary BHs have been produced via ray-tracing techniques on top of computationally expensive fully non-linear numerical relativity simulations.
On arXiv:1805.03798 [gr-qc], it is illustrated (as a proof of concept) that the main features of these shadows can be captured by a simple quasi-static evolution of the photon orbits on top of a static double-Schwarzschild family of solutions, which is exact.
Gr@v visits UNAM
A team of Gr@v members (P. Cunha, J. Delgado, C. Herdeiro and J. Oliveira) is visiting the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, at its Cuernava Campus, in April-May 2018 hosted by Professor Juan Carlos Degollado. The visit occurs within a Marie Curie RISE action, of which both UNAM and Aveiro Universities are partners.
Eddington at Sundy
On May 29th, 1919 a joint Royal Astronomical Society and Royal Society expedition led by Arthur Eddington to Principe observed a total solar eclipse, confirming the deflexion of light predicted by the General Theory of Relativity. Eddington at Sundy: 100 years later (E@S) results from a joint initiative of several institutions, including our group, to celebrate the centenary of these observations.
Visit to the University of Mons
Gr@v members C. Herdeiro and E. Radu visited the University of Mons (Belgium) in March 2018, to continue their scientific collaboration with Professor Yves Brihaye. Herdeiro presented a seminar on the group's work. And, as demanded by tradition, they all paid a visit to the Guardhouse monkey of Mons!
Editor's Choice article in GRG
The invited review article "Shadows and strong gravitational lensing: a brief review", by Gr@v members P. Cunha and C. Herdeiro was selected as Editor's choice in General Relativity and Gravitation.
"Nullius in Verba"
Stephen Hawking passes away
The black hole theorist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking passed away at the age of 76. Stephen Hawking distinguished himself not only as a brilliant scientist, with remarkable contributions such as the discovery of black hole evaporation, but also as an active science communicator with best selling books, most notably A brief history of time.