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 one 1-year research grant in Strong Gravity for M.Sc. holders enrolled in a doctoral programme at Aveiro University, within the research grant “Gravitational waves and black holes as ultralight dark matter particle detectors", CERN/FIS-PAR/0024/2021, is open from 20 March to 10 April 2023. See attached document for details (in Portuguese) or the Euraxess announcement (in English) here.
Black holes in a swirling universe
Marco Astorino, Riccardo Martelli, Adriano Viganò
arXiv:2205.13548 [gr-qc]
The detection of gravitational waves is a powerful tool in our quest to deepen our understanding of fundamental physics. To make the most out of this tool, we need to accurately simulate the whole process of gravitational wave emission, propagation and detection by interferometers.
Our group visited Colégio de Lamas, in Santa Maria da Feira, to explain basic concepts about Earth and Space. Inevitably, the questions end up discussing black holes!
The idea that the Planck length can act as a regulator of UV divergences has inspired various approaches to quantum gravity, but a possibly much larger width for the ground state emerges in the (non-perturbative) quantisation of the Oppenheimer-Snyder model of dust collapse that naturally recovers Bekenstein’s area law.