Black holes, atoms and gravitational molecules

by Vitor Cardoso (Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon)

Thursday 21 Feb 2019, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed. G. Marconi)

Black holes are the simplest macroscopic objects one can conceive of, 
and are often referred to as the Hydrogen atom of General Relativity. 
Black holes allow us to test the
basic tenets of General Relativity, some of which have been taken for 
granted without observations: are black holes really simple, do they 
always form to cloak singularities?
I will describe black hole spectroscopy with gravitational-wave 
detectors, and I will provide evidence that when bound, black hole 
binaries should be thought of as gravitational molecules, with global 
characteristic modes and geodesics.
Finally, I will discuss how black holes and black hole binaries can be 
used as particle detectors.