On 16 September 2026, Gr@v resumed its scientific activities with the first Journal Club of the new term. We are delighted to welcome several visitors to the group, including Alvaro Salazar (Valladolid, Spain), Kelvin Alves (UNESP, Brazil), Flavio Rosales Infante (UMSNH, Mexico), and Razieh Ranjbar (Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Iran). We are also very happy to welcome our new PhD student, Yusheng He, who joins us after graduating in China. It is great to see the group growing and our scientific activities getting underway again.
The II Workshop on Fundamental Fields and Compact Objects, integrated in the NewFunFiCO network, will be held in person at the Institute of Physical Sciences, UNAM-Morelos, Mexico, 17–19 November 2026. More info here.
C. Herdeiro visited Hunan Normal University for two weeks in August-September 2026, where he gave a lecture course on Gravitating Solitons and Hairy Black holes. During the visit it was also possible to interact with collegues from Jianxi Normal University. Many thanks to Mengjie Wang and the whole group at HNU, led by Prof. Jiliang Jing, as well as to Hyat Huang and the whole group in JNU, for a wonderful hosting and great scientific interactions in Changsha and Nanchang.
Gr@v students M. Brito, J. Ferreira and M. Mariano were amongst the participants of the New Frontiers in Strong Gravity meeting in Benasque, in July 2026.
The countdown to the 12 August solar eclipse keeps running! To prepare for the occasion, Prof. Luis Crispino from UFPA, in Brazil, will give an outreach talk on the topic on 29 July (18:00) at Fábrica – Centro Ciência Viva de Aveiro. Everyone is welcome!
The countdown to the 12 August solar eclipse has begun! To mark the occasion, Máximo Ferreira, one of Portugal's best-known astronomy communicators, will present his new book O Céu é o Máximo! on 24 July (18:00) at Fábrica – Centro Ciência Viva de Aveiro. The conversation will be moderated by C. Herdeiro from Gr@v. If you're planning to enjoy next month's eclipse, this is a great way to get ready.
Member of Gr@v H. Olivares participated at the Spanish and Portuguese Relativity Meeting 2026, held in Murcia, Spain, to deliver an invited talk on simulating and observing black hole mimickers.
We got together on May 20th 2026 at Etevaldo's favourite restaurant in Aveiro (O Telheiro), to celebrate his 4.5 years in Gr@v. In the same day we had an excellent seminar from Hryhorii Ovcharenko, visiting from Prague. Etevaldo is now starting a post-doctoral position in Brazil. Many thanks, Etevaldo, for being with us. See you soon!
Gravitational-wave (GW) observations have significantly advanced our understanding of stellar-origin compact objects. Current detectors could, in principle, also observe exotic compact objects (ECOs) acting as black-hole mimickers and interacting only gravitationally with visible matter.
Our group coordinated the "Numerical Relativity and High Energy Physics" IRSES network (2012-2015). Here is a list of the global network meetings organized:
