Strong Gravity

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.

Latest Strong Gravity Publications

Analytic backreaction of a scalar wig on a Schwarzschild black hole, M. de Cesare, M. Del Piano, C. A. R. Herdeiro; arXiv:2607.25932 [gr-qc].

Publication type
Regular Articles
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Dynamics and geometry of the inner sub-parsec-scale jet in 3C 279 observed with the Event Horizon Telescope, H. Mueller et al. (w/ H. Olivares); arXiv:2607.16104 [astro-ph.GA].

Publication type
Regular Articles
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Relativistic and Newtonian Proca Stars: A Tale of Two Limits, A. Diez-Tejedor, C. Herdeiro, C. Lazarte, E. Radu, A. A. Roque, N. Sanchis-Gual, E. dos Santos Costa Filho; arXiv:2606.13785 [gr-qc].

Publication type
Regular Articles
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Two asymptotically flat spinning black holes balanced by their self-interacting, synchronised scalar hair, C. Liang, C. Herdeiro, E. Radu; Phys. Rev. D 114 (2026) 044063; arXiv:2605.20374 [gr-qc].

Publication type
Regular Articles
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Electromagnetic duality degeneracy in dynamical black hole mergers, J. Ferreira, G. Bozzola, C. A. R. Herdeiro, V. Paschalidis, M. Zilhão; arXiv:2605.20493 [gr-qc].

Publication type
Regular Articles
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Latest Strong Gravity News & Events

Academic year 2026/27 beginning of group activities

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.

Visualizing Math and Physics with Python

Former Gr@v member Raimon Luna developed a project to visualize many mathematical and physical concepts through images and animations fully generated by short Python scripts. 

Each picture is supposed to introduce a different idea in mathematics or physics in a visually appealing way, without the use of any text or numbers. For those of us who tend to have a visual understanding of these abstract topics, including the author, the pictures can be a nice way to get a different intuition on them.