Cheng Foo

PhD Student
Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity
Location Potsdam
+49 331 567-7241
1.64

Main Focus

My primary research focus revolves around theoretically modelling gravitational waves generated by binary black holes. Specifically, I investigate the impact of precession on gravitational-wave signals produced by compact binary systems, utilising the Effective-One-Body formalism. Precession arises when the spins of two black holes within the binary system are not aligned with the orbital angular momentum, causing the plane of orbit to precess, and introducing complexities in the modelling of the gravitational waveforms. As gravitational-wave detectors become more sensitive, it is increasingly important to develop more precise models in order to extract astrophysical information.


Curriculum Vitae

2017-2021: Undergraduate Degree (MPhysPhil) in Physics and Philosophy at the University of Oxford, Trinity College, supported by the Jardine Scholarship.
2021-2023: Master’s Degree in Physics at ETH Zürich (MSc Physics).
For my master’s thesis, I looked at how systematic biases in some waveform models could affect a test of General Relativity called the IMR-consistency test, supervised by Dr. Eleanor Hamilton and Prof. Philippe Jetzer. Prior to this, I worked on a semester project about perturbations of a Kerr black hole embedded in background de Sitter spacetime, supervised by Dr. Shubhanshu Tiwari and Prof. Jetzer.
In September 2023, I joined the Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity department at the AEI, as a PhD student supervised by Prof. Alessandra Buonanno.

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