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Gulbenkian Prize for CENTRA Print

Richard Brito, PhD student and researcher at CENTRA won the 2013 Gulbenkian's Scientific Research Program. Brito's project, supervised by Vitor Cardoso and Paolo Pani is titled "Weighing Einstein's Messengers," and intends to study the physical consequences of putative massive gravitons.


Last Updated on Monday, 30 December 2013 15:00
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Highlights of CQG Print

The article Tidal acceleration of black holes and superradiance by Cardoso and Pani was selected by the Editorial Board of Classical and Quantum Gravity (CQG) to be one of the journal’s Highlights of 2012-2013.

The Highlights will be promoted as a representation of some of the most interesting and high quality work in gravitational physics.

Last Updated on Sunday, 01 December 2013 11:38
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Ultralarge-scale limits on primordial non-Gaussinianity Print

The large-scale structure of the Universe supplies crucial information about the physical processes at play at early times. However, usual galaxy surveys - even from the next-generation of telescopes and satellites - will not be able to probe the largest cosmic scales. In a recently published Physical Review Letters.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 October 2013 15:01
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Dirty black holes are interesting Print

One of the most awe-inspiring properties of black holes is their absolute simplicity, or as John Wheeler famously put it, “black holes have no hair”. As their progenitor collapses, its memory is forever lost, and all that remains is a quiescient, almost featureless, black hole. In a new article to appear in Physical Review Letters, our group questions whether this conclusion applies to realistic, astrophysical black holes

Last Updated on Monday, 07 October 2013 04:35
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50-year old problem solved Print

Paolo Pani and colleagues solved a 50-year old problem in black hole physics. Their study is due to appear in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters.


Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 May 2013 13:14
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Focus paper in CQG Print

The NRHEP white paper edited by V. Cardoso, L. Gualtieri, C. Herdeiro and U. Sperhake was published as a Focus paper in Classical and Quantum Gravity. This paper was a written summary of the discussions and presentations that took place in the Numerical Relativity and High Energy Physics Workshop

Last Updated on Friday, 30 November 2012 18:26
 
CENTRA researchers weigh light Print

Supermassive black holes can be used to measure the mass of extremely light particles to unprecedented levels and rule out the existence of new exotic particles, perhaps constraining the nature of dark matter. These are the results of a recent study by Vitor Cardoso and Paolo Pani to be published in the prestigious Physical Review Letters and covered by New Scientist, Expresso, Phys.Org. and selected for highlights of the American Physical Society.

Last Updated on Thursday, 27 September 2012 18:04
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Ciclo Diálogos e Expectativas Print

The Fundação Oriente and the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa are organizing a cicle of conferences "CICLO DIÁLOGOS E EXPECTATIVAS" constituted by five dialogs between ten experts in different fields. One of the dialogs will be "Origem e evolução do universo: andando com o relógio para trás, e mais física formidável" by Jorge Dias de Deus and José Sande Lemos, on May 24, 6pm. There will be an atribution of two ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) to the students that attend more than four sessions. For further details, check the official webpage.

Last Updated on Thursday, 26 April 2012 16:29
 
Spanish Relativity Meeting Print

This year the Spanish Relativity Meeting will be held in Portugal, in the wonderful city of Guimarães, which is also the 2012 European Culture Capital. For further details, check the official webpage.

Last Updated on Friday, 20 April 2012 19:40
 
Tides on black holes Print

A new study by CENTRA members was published in the prestigious Physical Review Letters. The study, led by Prof. Cardoso, shows that orbiting compact stars around black holes can raise tides, or rather "tsunamis" on the surface of black holes, leading to important astrophysical consequences.

Last Updated on Friday, 09 December 2011 14:57
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European Action for CENTRA Print

The European Commission Research Executive Agency has approved an International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) Marie Curie action on "Numerical Relativity and High Energy Physics" (NRHEP), within the FP7 People Programme.

Last Updated on Friday, 09 December 2011 15:00
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Rocha in Highlights of CQG Print

A paper by Jorge Rocha on black hole solutions has been selected as a Classical and Quantum Gravity Highlights 2010-2011. These articles comprise a handful of the best research published in the journal in the last year.

Last Updated on Thursday, 12 April 2012 12:48
 
Sir Eddington strikes back Print

The existence of spacetime singularities in Einstein's theory of General Relativity has long troubled physicists. Now, a new theory of gravitation is able to reproduce all the classical tests of relativity, while avoiding singularities such as the Big Bang or those inside black holes. These results, co-authored by Paolo Pani, Vitor Cardoso and Térence Delsate, are being published by the prestigious Physical Review Letters.

 

Last Updated on Friday, 17 June 2011 18:12
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Site Migration Print

CENTRA's Site is beeing migrated from Zope/Plone to Joomla. Some sections are still under construction, please be patient. The old webpage is still available here.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 13 August 2008 15:34
 
Welcome to CENTRA: Centro Multidisciplinar de Astrofísica Print

CENTRA is a research unit of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). It is composed of three groups: Gravitation in Técnico (GRIT), Cosmos and Stars (COSTAR) and Scientific and Space Instrumentation and Modeling (SIM). CENTRA members are at IST, University of Algarve University of Beira Interior, and Faculdade de Ciências of Universidade de Lisboa.