Dr. Laura Sberna

I have broad research interests in cosmology and gravitational wave physics, touching both observational and theoretical aspects.

My research in gravitational wave astronomy focuses on environmental/matter effects in binary systems. These range from acceleration, friction and mass accretion effects in black hole binaries located in active galactic nuclei, to the mass transfer occurring in galactic binaries containing a white dwarf or a neutron star. My goal is to accurately model the impact of environmental effects on gravitational wave signals, and use them to extract information about binary formation, population, and cosmology.

Recently, I have also investigated the higher order interactions between black hole perturbations, with an application to the very final phase (the “ringdown") of binary mergers. Minute higher order effects in the ringdown are still poorly understood at the theoretical level and could have an impact on our ability to test general relativity. In the past, I worked on quantum cosmology for the early universe, using the gravitational path integral. I also worked on constraining the nature of dark matter trough electromagnetic observations.

Publications

Here are links to my publications: from INSPIRE, and from the ADS database.