IA/U.Lisboa Seminar - Theories of Gravity, Spacetime geometry and Electromagnetism - Astrophysical (...) - 3 outubro 2017

More than 100 years ago, Eintein's General Relativity (GR) opened the door for a the deep questioning: There is a fundamental relation between gravity, spacetime geometry and physical fields, can this be understood in a unified manner?

In this seminar the main concern will be that of theories of gravity and spacetime geometry and the emergent field of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy. Modified theories of gravity can be tested in the context of its astrophysical and cosmological applications using GWs. Important topics concerning GWs will be addressed such as the testing of models of dark energy and modified theories of gravity, GWs from neutron stars, electromagnetic counterparts of GW sources and the synergy between GW and galaxy catalogues. I will focus on extensions of GR that go beyond the Riemann geometry in the context of Gauge theories of Gravity.

The coupling between electromagnetism and gravity will also be explored at a fundamental level and within GW physics. This coupling can be used to construct new advanced GW detectors and it is also relevant in the plasma environment around some compact binaries. Pre-metric electrodynamics motivates a change in the spacetime paradigm where the conformal (causal) structure of spacetime is more fundamental than the metric. This is in tune with some developments in Conformal Gauge theories of gravity.

(I will review the work developed during the first year of the Phd and focus on the main research lines for the second year)