The group's research on strong gravity involves finding analytical and numerical solutions of Einstein's theory of general relativity, and many of its extensions, either in vacuum or coupled to various types of matter. For our latest developments/activities in this area, please see the listing at the end of this article.
The prime examples of (relativistic) strong gravitational systems are Black Holes. They are truly unifying objects of all physics. The understanding of their formation and dynamics requires the laws of all four fundamental forces, and their physics is relevant not only for astrophysics and cosmology but for a variety of topics within high energy physics.
See here a movie made by the COST action `Black holes in a violent universe', in which our group participates, for a visual overview of different types of black holes.
A call for a 1 year postdoctoral grant in High Energy Physics, within the research grant “From Higgs phenomenology to the unification of fundamental interactions", PTDC / FIS-PAR / 31000/2017, is open from the 19th of April to the 14th of May 2021. See the eracareers announcement (in Portuguese and English) here.
A call for a 2 years postdoctoral grant in Strong Gravity, within the research grant “Testing the Kerr hypothesis with gravitational waves and lensing", PTDC / FIS-AST / 3041/2020, is open from 1 to 30 April 2021. See attached document for details (in Portuguese) or the eracareers announcement (in Portuguese and English) here.
C. Herdeiro was the invited speaker of the Tübingen Einstein seminar on April 16 2021.
Particle physics models of dark matter, and extensions to the Standard Model, predict the existence of a large abundance of light scalar degrees of freedom in the universe. From a diffuse cloud, these can form into rotating clumps of energy - boson stars.