Related papers: A Robust Test of General Relativity in Space
The capture and inspiral of compact stellar masses into massive black holes is an important source of low-frequency gravitational waves (with frequencies of ~1-100mHz), such as those that might be detected by the planned Laser…
The tidal Love numbers (TLNs) encode the deformability of a self-gravitating object immersed in a tidal environment and depend significantly both on the object's internal structure and on the dynamics of the gravitational field. An…
We show that second-generation gravitational-wave detectors at their design sensitivity will allow us to directly probe the ringdown phase of binary black hole coalescences. This opens the possibility to test the so-called black hole…
Inspirals of stellar-mass compact objects into $\sim 10^6 M_{\odot}$ black holes are especially interesting sources of gravitational waves for LISA. We investigate whether the emitted waveforms can be used to strongly constrain the geometry…
One of the most exciting potential sources of gravitational waves for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) are the inspirals of approximately solar mass compact objects into massive black holes in the centres of galaxies - extreme…
In this review article I attempt to summarise past and present-ongoing-work on the problem of the inspiral of a small body in the gravitational field of a much more massive Kerr black hole. Such extreme mass ratio systems, expected to occur…
Gravitational wave observations will probe non-linear gravitational interactions and thus enable strong tests of Einstein's theory of general relativity. We present a numerical relativity study of the late inspiral and merger of binary…
Einstein's theory of General Relativity was proposed over 100 years ago and has successfully passed a large number of observational tests in weak gravitational fields. On the contrary, the strong field regime is still largely unexplored.…
Recently, the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration has reported the first image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius in the Galactic Center. We attempt to test the validity of the no-hair theorem of black holes using this new shadow…
We investigate how the speed of gravitational waves, $c_{GW}$, can be tested by upcoming black hole ringdown observations. We do so in the context of hairy black hole solutions, where the hair is associated with a new scalar degree of…
Extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs), where a small compact object inspiralls onto a supermassive black hole, are excellent sources for the space-based laser interferometer gravitational wave (GW) detectors. The presence of dark matter…
Event horizons are among the most intriguing of general relativity's predictions. Although on firm theoretical footing, direct indications of their existence have yet to be observed. With this motivation in mind, we explore here the…
Many scenarios have been proposed for the origin of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that are found in the centres of most galaxies. Many of these formation scenarios predict a high-redshift population of intermediate-mass black holes…
LISA should detect gravitational waves from tens to hundreds of systems containing black holes with mass in the range from 10 thousand to 10 million solar masses. Black holes in this mass range are not well constrained by current…
Gravitational waves (GWs) have provided a new lens through which to view the universe beyond traditional electromagnetic methods. The upcoming space-based gravitational wave mission, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), will give us…
The extreme-gravity collisions between black holes allow us to probe the underlying theory of gravity. We apply the theory-agnostic inspiral-merger-ringdown consistency test to an example theory beyond general relativity for the first time.…
The evidence for supermassive Kerr black holes in galactic centers is strong and growing, but only the detection of gravitational waves will convincingly rule out other possibilities to explain the observations. The Kerr spacetime is…
Gravitational wave observations will be excellent tools for making precise measurements of processes that occur in very strong-field regions of spacetime. Extreme mass ratio systems, formed by the capture of a stellar mass body compact by a…
It is generally accepted that Einstein's theory will get some as yet unknown corrections, possibly large in the strong field regime. An ideal place to look for these modifications is around the vicinities of compact objects such as black…
Inspirals of stellar-mass compact objects into massive black holes, known as extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs), are one of the key targets for upcoming space-based gravitational-wave detectors. In this paper we take the first steps…