Related papers: OJ 287: New Testing Ground for General Relativity …
The analysis of the properties of the X-ray radiation emitted from geometrically thin accretion disks around black holes can be a powerful tool to test General Relativity in the strong field regime. This chapter reviews the state-of-the-art…
Asymmetric emission of gravitational waves during a compact binary coalescence results in the loss of linear momentum and a corresponding "kick" or recoil on the binary's center of mass. This leads to a direction-dependent Doppler shift of…
The status of experimental tests of general relativity and of theoretical frameworks for analysing them is reviewed. Einstein's equivalence principle (EEP) is well supported by experiments such as the Eotvos experiment, tests of special…
The existence of cosmological compact objects with very strong gravity is a prediction of General Relativity and an exact solution of the Einstein equations. These objects are called black holes and recently we had the first observations of…
It is well known that general relativity is an effective theory of gravity at low energy scale, and actually quantum effects cannot be ignored in the strong-field regime. As a strong gravitational object, black hole plays a key role in…
The gravitational field around an astrophysical black hole (BH) is thought to be described by the Kerr spacetime, which is a solution of the Einstein equation. Signatures of binary black hole (BBH) coalescence in gravitational waves (GW)…
Recent advances, including gravitational wave detections and imaging of black hole shadows, have strongly validated general relativity. Nevertheless, ongoing cosmological observations suggest potential limitations of general relativity,…
The equation of state (EoS) of dark energy $w$ remains elusive despite enormous experimental efforts to pin down its value and its time variation. Yet it is the single most important handle we have in our understanding of one of the most…
Tests of gravity are important to the development of our understanding of gravitation and spacetime. Binary pulsars provide a superb playground for testing gravity theories. In this chapter we pedagogically review the basics behind pulsar…
The discovery of the first pulsar in a binary star system, the Hulse--Taylor pulsar, 50 years ago opened up an entirely new field of experimental gravity. For the first time it was possible to investigate strong-field and radiative aspects…
The recent discovery of "dark energy" has challenged Einstein's general theory of relativity as a complete model for our macroscopic universe. From a theoretical view, the challenge is even stronger: general relativity clearly does not…
We try to propose a tentative relativistic jet model for explaining the entire radio-optical phenomena observed in blazar OJ287, which has been observed quasi-periodically with a cycle of about 12yr in its optical light curve. We…
We consider the observation of stellar-mass black holes binaries with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Preliminary results based on Fisher information matrix analyses have suggested that gravitational waves from those sources…
Studying the dynamical, nonlinear regime of modified theories of gravity remains a theoretical challenge that limits our ability to test general relativity. Here we consider two generally applicable, but approximate methods for treating…
Today we have quite stringent constraints on possible violations of the Weak Equivalence Principle from the comparison of the acceleration of test-bodies of different composition in Earth's gravitational field. In the present paper, we…
This review is focused on tests of Einstein's theory of General Relativity with gravitational waves that are detectable by ground-based interferometers and pulsar timing experiments. Einstein's theory has been greatly constrained in the…
Astrophysical black hole systems are the ideal laboratories for testing Einstein's theory of gravity in the strong field regime. We have recently developed a framework which uses the reflection spectrum of black hole systems to perform…
We propose to use pulsar-black hole binaries as a probe of gravitational collider physics. Induced by the gravitation of the pulsar, the atomic transitions of the boson cloud around the black hole back-react on the orbital motion. This…
Gravitational waves (GWs) from merging black holes allow for unprecedented probes of strong-field gravity. Testing gravity in this regime requires accurate predictions of gravitational waveform templates in viable extensions of General…
The dynamics of binary pulsars can be used to test different aspects of gravitation. This is particularly important to constrain alternatives to general relativity in regimes which are not probed by other methods. In this short…