Astrophysics is an area concerning various physical ranging from planetary sized systems, to galactic scale systems and beyond, that intersects various disciplines such as Newtonian dynamics, relativistic physics and particle physics processes.
For our latest developments/activities in this area, please see the listing below at the end of this article.
An exoplanet is a planet outside the Solar System. In the Milky Way galaxy, it is expected that there are many billions of planets (at least one planet, on average, orbiting around each star, resulting in 100–400 billion exoplanets), with many more free-floating planetary-mass bodies orbiting the galaxy directly.
We study the long-term dynamics of known multi-planet systems. This allow us to test the accuracy of the orbital parameters' determinations, as well as to understand how these systems evolved. We also look for the stable zones in the gaps between already-known planets in order to determine where is it possible to locate Earth-like planets.
See here a movie made by the PhD Animation on "Exoplanets Explained", for a review on the main observational methods used to detect exoplanets.
A call for one 1-year research grant in Strong Gravity for M.Sc. holders enrolled in a doctoral programme at Aveiro University, within the research grant “Gravitational waves and black holes as ultralight dark matter particle detectors", CERN/FIS-PAR/0024/2021, is open from 20 March to 10 April 2023. See attached document for details (in Portuguese) or the Euraxess announcement (in English) here.
Our group visited Colégio de Lamas, in Santa Maria da Feira, to explain basic concepts about Earth and Space. Inevitably, the questions end up discussing black holes!
Full Name: Sergio Gimeno-Soler
Position: Junior Research Fellow (2023-24)
Celebrating the recent "UA Investigador" prize and the group's many (great) guests on Mar 7th 2023. Thank you to Prof. Carolina Benone (U. F. do Pará, Brazil) for the visit and welcome to Prof. Maurício Richartz (U. F. ABC, Brazil), who is joining us for a month. And we also got the short visit of Francisco Duque, from IST-Lisbon, who presented the group seminar on Mar 8th.
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.