Cosmology News & Events

The detection of gravitational waves has been one of the most exciting scientific developments of the XXIst century. These detections are theory-driven, they rely on the existence of waveform libraries, which have been constructed for binary black holes and neutron stars. Gr@v members have collaborated on the construction of the first waveform catalogue for exotic compact objects, an effort led by former Gr@v member Nicolas Sanchis Gual (now at the U. Valencia).

In the 5th FCT individual contest for stimulous of research, Miguel Zilhão, Guilherme Raposo and Hector Olivares obtained 6 years research positions to join Gr@v.

In the paper "The fate of the light-ring instability" Gr@v members P. Cunha, C. Herdeiro and E. Radu, together with former member, currently at the U. Valencia, N. Sanchis-Gual, have unveiled the mystery of the fate of a large class of horizonless ultracompact objects, that could be potential black hole foils.

A long standing intriguing possibility is if the astrophysical black hole candidates could be some other kind of mysterious objects but without event horizons, the defining property of black holes.

The project "Gravitational waves, black holes, and fundamental physics" led by M. Zilhão (co-PI C.Herdeiro), fully based at Aveiro U., was one of the six Scientific Research and Technological Development Projects selected for funding in the 2022 FCT Call for R&D projects in the Physics panel. All results can be seen here.

C. Herdeiro was the invited speaker for the Research Center of Gravitation at Lanzhou University, China, webinar on 27/7/2022.

Gr@v is one of the 126 groups/institutions that joined the European Consortium for Astroparticle Theory (EuCAPT). EuCAPT purpose is to bring together theoretical cosmologists and astroparticle physicists across Europe aiming at increasing the exchange of ideas, coordinate scientific activities, help in the attraction of adequate resources as well as promoting a stimulating, fair and open environment in which young scientists can thrive. Gr@v's participation is coordinated by A. Morais.

Group member Felipe Freitas embraced a new career at Électricité de France (EDF), at the bureau based on Brighton UK. Felipe's expertise on machine/deep learning will now be applied to other problems. Felipe will remain a collaborator of the group still developing some of our current research directions. See you soon Felipe!

To close our academic year seminar/webinar programme we had the pleasure to host Leong Khim Wong, from Saclay, France, who gave an on campus seminar on "Gravitational Waves from spontaneously scalarized black holes", on June 29 2022.

Gr@v members A. Morais, F. Freitas and C. Herdeiro, reuniting with former member N. Sanchis-Gual, in Valencia, Spain, during the 2nd Workshop on Compact Objects, Gravitational Waves and Deep Learning (20-23 June 2022).

A two days workshop "Exact solutions in classical field theory: Solitons, black holes and bosons stars", that will take place on 2-3 June will honour the work of Yves Brihaye, former head of the Research Unit of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics and currently Professor Emeritus in the Unit Physics of the Univers,  Fields and Gravitation. As long time collaborators, E. Radu and C. Herdeiro are two of the invited speakers of the workshop.