Astrophysics
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.
Exoplanets
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.
Latest Astrophysics News & Events
COST Workshop - "Astrometry and gravitation - A dynamical view of the sky"
In the framework of the COST action MW-Gaia, related with the Gaia (ESA) mission, for which Gr@v member Sonia Anton serves as MC member, a 3-days workshop on "Astrometry and gravitation - A dynamical view of the sky" is being organised on 4-6 December 2019, at the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Mont Gros site, Nice, France. More info here.
Cambridge School on Gravitational Waves
The Kavli-RISE Summer School on Gravitational Waves took place at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, University of Cambridge, on September 23-27, 2019. C. Herdeiro was one of the invited Lecturers.
Pedro Cunha PhD defense
Pedro Cunha defended his PhD thesis with title "Shadows and gravitational lensing of Black Holes interacting with fundamental fields" on September 9th 2019, at IST-Lisbon. The panel, composed by Prof. Volker Perlick, Frederic Vincent, José Natário, Carlos Herdeiro (advisor) and José Lemos (president) unanimously attributed the highest classification of Approved with Distinction and Honour to an outstanding piece of work. Congratulations Pedro!
Gr@v students visit Brazil
Gr@v Ph.D. students Alexandre Pombo, João Oliveira and Jorge Delgado visited Belém, Brazil as members of the FunFiCO Marie Curie RISE project. Their visit coincided with the VII Amazonian Workshop on Gravity and analogue models, where they presented their work, and the Amazonian High Studies School in Theoretical Physics where they attended courses on Numerical Relativity and Gravitational Lensing.