From 4-8 September 2023 the IST Astronomy Summer School gathered enthusiastic high school students to learn about astronomy. Amongst the activities there was a round table with the participation of our grup. The video link of the discussion can be found here.
Extreme-Mass-Ratio-Inspirals (EMRIs) modelling in time-domain has been anything but trivial due to the challenges associated with resolving the discontinuity emerging from the point-particle model
Gravitational-wave observations of extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs) hold incredible potential to probe gravity, astrophysical and exotic environments. One of the main effects of astrophysical environments — in particular active galactic nuclei — is the torque exerted by their gaseous disk, which forces EMRIs to “migrate” (mostly) inward like planets.
Primordial black holes (PBHs) might form in the early universe and could comprise a significant fraction of the dark matter. If they are generated due to enhanced scalar perturbations at small scales, their formation is inevitably accompanied by the emission of gravitational waves (GWs) that could be seen by current and future GW experiments.
Ultralight dark matter is an exciting alternative to the standard cold dark matter paradigm, reproducing its large scale predictions, while solving most of its potential tension with small scale observations (like the "cusp-core" and "missing satellites" problems).
I will discuss new degrees of freedom of gravity as motivated by string theory. Although they are expected to be generically quantum mechanical, classes of such states are coherent enough to admit classical descriptions in Einstein gravity. I will explain how to describe them as novel ultra-compact geometries without horizon or singularity.
Our group coordinated the "Numerical Relativity and High Energy Physics" IRSES network (2012-2015). Here is a list of the global network meetings organized: