Related papers: Testing the Weak Equivalence Principle near black …
We investigate the non-relativistic limit of the Klein--Gordon equation for mixed scalar particles and show that, in this regime, one unavoidably arrives at redefining the particle's inertial mass. This happens because, in contrast to the…
Most of the X-ray emission from luminous accreting black holes emerges from within 20 gravitational radii. The effective emission radius is several times smaller if the black hole is rapidly spinning. General Relativistic effects can then…
In this work, gravitational lensing in the weak and strong field limits is investigated for black hole spacetime within the framework of Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ gravity. We employ the Ishihara et al. approach for weak lensing and adopt Bozza's…
Stellar-mass black holes offer what is perhaps the best scenario to test theories of gravity in the strong-field regime. In particular, f(R) theories, which have been widely discuss in a cosmological context, can be constrained through…
Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals consist of binary systems of compact objects, with orders of magnitude differences in their masses, in the regime where the dynamics are driven by gravitational wave emission. The unique nature of…
Black-hole neutron-star coalescing binaries have been invoked as one of the most suitable scenario to explain the emission of short gamma-ray bursts. Indeed, if the black-hole which forms after the merger, is surrounded by a massive disk,…
We consider a very simple model for gravitational wave echoes from black hole merger ringdowns which may arise from local Lorentz symmetry violations that modify graviton dispersion relations. If the corrections are sufficiently soft so…
Electromagnetic observations of the radiation emitted by an accretion disk around a black hole, as well as gravitational wave observations of coalescing binaries, can be used to probe strong-field gravity. We here compare the constraints…
The initial idea underlying the Weak Gravity Conjecture is that extremal black holes must always be "unstable", in the sense that they should slowly decay by emitting either particles or smaller black holes. Here we show that, when this…
In a binary system, the gravitational potential of the primary black hole may play an important role in enhancing the fallback accretion onto the lighter compact object newly formed in the second supernova explosion. As a result, the final…
We show that very-long-baseline-interferometry (VLBI) observations of supermassive black holes will allow us to test the fundamental principles of General Relativity (GR). GR is based on the universality of gravity and Einstein's…
One of the cornerstones of general relativity is the equivalence principle. However, the validity of the equivalence principle has only been established on solar system scales for standard matter fields; this result cannot be assumed to…
The prospect of mini black holes, either primordial or in planned experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, interacting with the earth motivate us to examine how they may be detected and the scope of their impact on the earth. We propose…
It is shown that space curvature can be disposed of by properly taking into account gravitational self energies. This leads to a parameter free modification of Newton's law, violating Gauss theorem, which accounts for the crucial tests of…
We propose tests of the weak equivalence principle (WEP) using a torsion balance, in which superposition of energy eigenstates are created in a controllable way for the test masses. After general considerations on the significance of tests…
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…
The Kerr spacetime is symmetric with respect to a well-defined equatorial plane. When testing the equatorial reflection symmetry of an isolated black hole, one is at the same time testing the Kerr hypothesis in General Relativity. In this…
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…
We consider an extension of the recent experiment with ultracold neutrons and the quantization of its vertical motion in order to test the Weak Equivalence Principle. We show that an improvement on the energy resolution of the experiment…
The mild form of the Weak Gravity Conjecture states that quantum or higher-derivative corrections should decrease the mass of large extremal charged black holes at fixed charge. This allows extremal black holes to decay, unless protected by…