Testing General Relativity with Gravitational Waves

by Prof. Vitor Cardoso

Thursday 23 Jan 2025, 15:15 → 16:15 Europe/Stockholm

We celebrate a decade of gravitational wave astronomy. One of the most remarkable achievements concerns tests of General Relativity and of the nature of compact objects. Gravitational collapse in Einstein’s theory leads to black holes, leaving behind a geometry with light rings, ergoregions and horizons. These peculiarities are responsible for uniqueness properties and energy extraction mechanisms that turn black holes into ideal laboratories of strong gravity, of particle physics (yes!) and of possible quantum-gravity effects. I will review some of the things we learned during the last ten years.

About the speaker:

Vitor Cardoso is a Bohr Professor and DNRF Chair at the Niels Bohr Institute and IST Distinguished Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico. His research interests are mainly focused on strong-gravity problems, with implications for gravitational-wave and black-hole physics, and he pioneered black hole spectroscopy. He is co-author of two books and of over 300 scientific papers. His research was recognized by the European Research Council, with three prestigious ERC Grants. He was a Research Fellow at CERN and Perimeter Institute, and a Van der Waals Professorial Chair at Amsterdam. He Chaired the IST Physics Department in 2020-2021 and the European COST Action GWverse from 2017-2021, in a network of over 500 scientists. He is a member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, and the 2023 ULisboa Award, the highest honour conferred by the University of Lisbon. He was awarded the “Ordem de Sant’Iago da Espada” presidential title, for scientific achievements.