Related papers: Prospects for probing strong gravity with a pulsar…
Observations of stars and pulsars orbiting the black hole in the center of the Milky Way offer the potential of measuring not only the mass of the black hole but also its spin and quadrupole moment, thereby providing observational…
Searches for empirical clues beyond Einstein's general relativity (GR) are crucial to understand gravitation and spacetime. Radio pulsars have been playing an important role in testing gravity theories since 1970s. Because radio timing of…
Astrophysical tests of general relativity belong to two categories: 1) "internal", i.e. consistency tests within the theory (for example, tests that astrophysical black holes are indeed described by the Kerr solution and its perturbations),…
Recent implications of results from quantum information theory applied to black holes has led to the confusing conclusions that requires either abandoning the equivalence principle (e.g. the firewall picture), or the no-hair theorem (e.g.…
The spin and quadrupole moment of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic center can in principle be measured via astrometric monitoring of stars orbiting at milliparsec (mpc) distances, allowing tests of general relativistic "no-hair"…
As a key science project of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the discovery and timing observations of radio pulsars in the Galactic Center would provide high-precision measurements of the spacetime around the supermassive black hole,…
General relativity has been tested by many experiments, which, however, almost exclusively probe weak spacetime curvatures. In this thesis, I create two frameworks for testing general relativity in the strong-field regime with observations…
One avenue for testing the no-hair theorem is obtained through timing a pulsar orbiting close to a black hole and fitting for quadrupolar effects on the time-of-arrival of pulses. If deviations from the Kerr quadrupole are measured, then…
Astrophysical black hole candidates are thought to be the Kerr black holes predicted by General Relativity, but the actual nature of these objects has still to be proven. The Kerr black hole hypothesis can be tested by observing strong…
Although General Relativity (GR) has been tested extensively in the weak gravity regime, similar tests in the strong gravity regime are still missing. In this paper we explore the possibility to use X-ray spectropolarimetric observations of…
Searching for violations of the no-hair theorem (NHT) is a powerful way to test gravity, and more generally fundamental physics, particularly with regards to the existence of additional scalar fields. The first observation of a black hole…
Astrophysical black holes (BHs) are universally expected to be described by the Kerr metric, a stationary, vacuum solution of general relativity (GR). Indeed, by imaging M87$^\star$ and Sgr A$^\star$ and measuring the size of their shadows,…
In the string axiverse scenario, primordial black holes (PBHs) can sustain non-negligible spin parameters as they evaporate. We show that tracking both the mass and spin evolution of a PBH in its final hour can yield a purely gravitational…
We discuss the observable effects of enhanced black-hole mass loss in a black hole--neutron star (BH--NS) binary, due to the presence of a warped extra spatial dimension of curvature radius $L$ in the braneworld scenario. For some masses…
Binary pulsars provide an excellent system for testing general relativity because of their intrinsic rotational stability and the precision with which radio observations can be used to determine their orbital dynamics. Measurements of the…
Theoretical investigations have provided proof-of-principle calculations suggesting measurements of stellar or pulsar orbits near the Galactic Center could strongly constrain the properties of the Galactic Center black hole, local matter,…
Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) represent one of the more interesting ways to address dark matter, at the interface of both cosmology and quantum gravity. It is no surprise then that testing PBHs is a venue of active interest, with several…
The no-hair theorem can be tested in the strong gravity regime by using the top-bottom approach and the bottom-top approach. The non-Kerr spacetime of the later approach is an ideal framework to do the tests in the region very close to the…
Precision tests of general relativity can be conducted by observing binary pulsars. Theories with massive fields exist to explain a variety of phenomena from dark energy to the strong CP problem. Existing pulsar binaries, such as the white…
Horizon-scale images of black holes (BHs) and their shadows have opened an unprecedented window onto tests of gravity and fundamental physics in the strong-field regime. We consider a wide range of well-motivated deviations from classical…