Dr Katy Clough awarded prestigious Simons Foundation grant for black hole research
With the leadership of Dr Katy Clough, Queen Mary University of London will play a central role in a major new international initiative focused on black holes and strong gravitational fields, following the award of a prestigious Simons Foundation grant.
Dr Katy Clough, a leading researcher in numerical relativity at Queen Mary’s School of Mathematical Sciences, has been named one of 12 Principal Investigators (PIs) in the newly formed $8-million Simons Collaboration on Black Holes and Strong Gravity. The project brings together world-renowned experts in theoretical physics, mathematics, and computational science to deepen our understanding of extreme gravity through the analysis of gravitational wave (GW) data.
Joining Dr Clough as part of the Queen Mary contingent are Professor Pau Figueras and Dr Aron Kovacs, who will contribute as associate members of the collaboration. All three are based in the School’s Centre for Geometry, Analysis and Gravitation, which is internationally recognised for its research in mathematical and theoretical aspects of general relativity and black hole physics.
Gravitational waves provide a unique window into phenomena where the effects of strong gravity are most pronounced. As next-generation upgrades to gravitational wave detectors like LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA dramatically improve their sensitivity, the scientific community faces the challenge of interpreting increasingly rich data. This collaboration aims to build the theoretical and computational tools needed to meet that challenge head-on.
Dr Clough commented:
"It’s a great honour to be part of this international collaboration and to be recognised by the Simons Foundation. These grants are very competitive, and I'm proud that Queen Mary is playing a key role. This is an exciting moment in the study of non-linear strong gravity, and we are looking forward to contributing to the discoveries that await us."
A key contribution from Queen Mary will be in the area of numerical simulations, which are computational models that solve Einstein’s equations under extreme conditions, revealing how black holes behave and interact. Dr Clough and colleagues are at the forefront of using large-scale supercomputing facilities to explore new gravitational phenomena, particularly in theories that extend beyond Einstein's general relativity. Their work also forms a cornerstone of the UK’s GRTL Collaboration, which develops software tools for simulating and testing gravity at its most extreme.
The Simons Collaboration brings together researchers from across mathematics, physics, and computer science to unlock secrets encoded in gravitational wave signals. In doing so, it could shed light on some of the most profound mysteries in physics, such as the nature of dark matter, the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe, and potential deviations from classical relativity.
The Simons Foundation grant will fund new postdoctoral and graduate-level positions and encourage collaboration through regular workshops and research visits. Queen Mary’s involvement ensures its continued prominence in the global effort to understand the most extreme astrophysical environments in the universe, and the fundamental nature of strong gravity.
The 12 co-PIs include Nicolás Yunes at Illinois, Emanuele Berti of Johns Hopkins University, Vitor Cardoso of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, Katy Clough of Queen Mary, University of London in the UK, Neil Cornish of Montana State University, Jonathan Gair of the Albert Einstein Institute (a Max Planck Institute), Daniel Holz of the University of Chicago, Gary Horowitz of the University of California Santa Barbara, Luis Lehner of the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in Canada, Alex Lupsasca of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, Matias Zaldarriaga of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, NJ, and Mihalis Dafermos of Princeton University. These co-PIs are physicists and mathematicians, who specialise in strong gravity from theoretical, computational and observational perspectives.