Simons Collaboration on Black Holes and Strong Gravity

The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics is part of the global Simons Collaboration in Strong Gravity and Black Holes (SimonsC-BHSG). This new, multidisciplinary and multinational collaboration explores the non-linear and dynamical nature of strong gravity and black holes in and beyond Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity through gravitational observations. The collaboration brings together mathematicians, physicists, numerical experts and data analysts to work on the following themes:

• The mathematical study of singularities and the stability of rapidly rotating black holes in general relativity,
• The analytical and numerical study of the potential breakdown of effective field theory methods outside black holes,
• The analytical and numerical modeling of the dynamics of (and gravitational waves emitted in) binary black hole coalescence (including the inspiral, merger and ringdown phases) through perturbative (post-Newtonian and black hole perturbation theory) and non-perturbative (numerical) methods,
• The connection of light-ring physics and ringdown physics in and outside of general relativity in light of current and future gravitational observations, 
• The creation of new methods and tests to extract features about strong gravity predicted in Einstein’s theory and in beyond-Einstein theories from gravitational-wave observations,
• The amelioration of systematics induced by the mismodeling of gravitational waves, of astrophysical environments, or of noise artifacts in gravitational-wave inference,
• The development of Bayesian data analysis techniques to carry out parameter estimation and model selection in non-stationary and non-Gaussian noise through traditional and AI-techniques.

The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics is playing a leading role in the last three themes, which focus on developing novel approaches to data analysis for constraining the physics of strong gravity with gravitational wave observations.
The collaboration’s major goal is to reveal deep insights about our cosmos at the intersection of strong gravity in general relativity, strong gravity beyond Einstein and gravitational observations. 

The Principal Investigators and Co-Principal Investigators participating in SimonsC-BHSG are Nicolás Yunes, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (nyunes@illinois.edu), Emanuele Berti, Johns Hopkins University (berti@jhu.edu), Vitor Cardoso, Niels Bohr Institute (vitor.cardoso@nbi.ku.dk), Katy Clough, Queen Mary, University of London (k.clough@qmul.ac.uk), Neil Cornish, Montana State University (ncornish@montana.edu), Mihalis Dafermos, Princeton University (dafermos@math.princeton.edu), Jonathan Gair, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Albert Einstein Institute (jgair@aei.mpg.de), Daniel Holz, the University of Chicago (grs@uchicago.edu), Gary Horowitz, the University of California Santa Barbara (horowitz@ucsb.edu), Luis Lehner, Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in Canada (llehner@perimeterinstitute.ca), Alex Lupsasca, Vanderbilt University (alexandru.v.lupsasca@vanderbilt.edu), and Matias Zaldarriaga, the Institute for Advanced Study (matiasz@ias.edu). 

For further information please see this press release or contact jgair@aei.mpg.de.