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While Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity (GR) has been tested extensively in our solar system, it is just beginning to be tested in the strong gravitational fields that surround black holes. As a way to study the behavior of…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2016-07-14 Janie K. Hoormann

The spacetime geometry around astrophysical black holes is well approximated by the Kerr metric, but deviations from standard predictions are possible in a number of scenarios beyond Einstein's gravity and in the presence of exotic matter.…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-01-17 Ashutosh Tripathi

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…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2015-06-05 Henric Krawczynski

Relativistic reflection features in the X-ray spectra of black hole binaries and AGNs originate from illumination of the inner part of the accretion disk by a hot corona. In the presence of high quality data and with the correct…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2020-09-28 Ashutosh Tripathi , Honghui Liu , Cosimo Bambi

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…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2024-07-12 Cosimo Bambi

In this paper, we briefly present RELXILL_NK, the first and currently only readily available model of the relativistic reflection spectrum of black hole accretion disks that includes non-Kerr solutions for the black hole spacetime, thus…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2021-11-24 Askar B. Abdikamalov , Dimitry Ayzenberg , Cosimo Bambi , Sourabh Nampalliwar

X-ray reflection spectroscopy is a promising technique for testing general relativity in the strong field regime, as it can be used to test the Kerr black hole hypothesis. In this context, the parametrically deformed black hole metrics…

General relativity is one of the pillars of modern physics. For decades, the theory has been mainly tested in the weak field regime with experiments in the Solar System and radio observations of binary pulsars. Until 2015, the strong field…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2023-06-21 Cosimo Bambi

Einstein's theory of General Relativity predicts that the spacetime metric around astrophysical black holes is described by the Kerr solution. In this work, we employ state-of-the-art in relativistic reflection modeling to analyze a…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-05-31 Ashutosh Tripathi , Yuexin Zhang , Askar B. Abdikamalov , Dimitry Ayzenberg , Cosimo Bambi , Jiachen Jiang , Honghui Liu , Menglei Zhou

Asymptotically safe quantum gravity is a promising candidate scenario to provide a UV extension for the effective quantum field theory of Einstein's gravity. The theory has its foundations on the very successful framework of quantum field…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-01-27 Biao Zhou , Askar B. Abdikamalov , Dimitry Ayzenberg , Cosimo Bambi , Sourabh Nampalliwar , Ashutosh Tripathi

The supermassive short period black hole binary OJ287 is discussed as a new precision testing ground for general relativity and alternate gravity theories. Like in the case of binary pulsars, the relativistic gravity effects are…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-03-17 C. Sivaram

Blurred reflection features are commonly observed in the X-ray spectra of accreting black holes. In the presence of high-quality data and with the correct astrophysical model, X-ray reflection spectroscopy is a powerful tool to probe the…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-10-15 Cosimo Bambi

We present the novel capabilities of the enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP) mission to study the strong gravity region around stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binary systems and supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei.…

Neutron stars and black holes are the astrophysical systems with the strongest gravitational fields in the universe. In this article, I review the prospect of probing with observations of such compact objects some of the most intriguing…

Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-13 Dimitrios Psaltis

The theory of General Relativity has successfully passed a large number of observational tests. The theory has been extensively tested in the weak-field regime with experiments in the Solar System and observations of binary pulsars.…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-02-14 Dimitry Ayzenberg , Cosimo Bambi

The theory of General Relativity has successfully passed a large number of observational tests. The theory has been extensively tested in the weak-field regime with experiments in the Solar System and observations of binary pulsars. The…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-01-30 Cosimo Bambi

In the past decade, we have seen an unprecedented progress in our ability of testing general relativity in the strong field regime with black hole observations. Most studies have focused on the so-called tests of the Kerr hypothesis: they…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2024-03-21 Shuaitongze Zhao , Shafqat Riaz , Cosimo Bambi

The status of experimental tests of general relativity and of theoretical frameworks for analysing them are reviewed. Einstein's equivalence principle (EEP) is well supported by experiments such as the E\"otv\"os experiment, tests of…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2008-11-26 Clifford M. Will

Exploring Einstein's theories of relativity in quantum systems, for example by using atomic clocks at high speeds can deepen our knowledge in physics. However, many challenges still remain on finding novel methods for detecting effects of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-04-24 Wen-Te Liao , Sven Ahrens

X-ray reflection spectroscopy is a powerful tool for testing the Kerr hypothesis and probing the strong gravity regime around accreting black holes. Most tests of General Relativity (GR) assume that the spacetime around a black hole is…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-02-19 Leda Gao , Swarnim Shashank , Cosimo Bambi