Queen Mary researcher awarded prestigious Simons Foundation grant for black hole research

Dr Katy Clough has been named Principal Investigator (PI) in the newly established $8-million Simons Collaboration on Black Holes and Strong Gravity. This highly competitive grant will bring together 12 co-PIs from institutions worldwide, alongside a wider network of experts, to develop a robust theoretical framework for deciphering secrets encoded in gravitational wave (GW) data.  

Queen Mary Professor Pau Figueras and postdoctoral researcher Aron Kovacs will also act as associates in the grant’s wider network of collaborators, underscoring the university's key role in cutting-edge gravitational research.  

Gravitational wave science offers an unparalleled opportunity to probe the physics of strong gravity – the extreme conditions found in the vicinity of black holes. With planned upgrades to the Advanced LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA gravitational wave detectors set to double their sensitivity in the coming years, the volume of the universe accessible through GW data will increase by a factor of eight. This advancement ushers in an era of precision gravitational wave physics, demanding a deeper understanding of non-linear gravity. 

"It’s a great honour to be part of this international collaboration and to be recognised by the Simons Foundation," Dr Clough commented. "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." 

The collaboration's ambitious goals include developing the theoretical framework necessary to demystify persistent astrophysical puzzles and shedding new light on the fundamental nature of black holes. This work could lead to breakthroughs in understanding the universe’s matter-antimatter asymmetry, the nature of dark matter, and physics that extends beyond Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The research will involve analytical calculations, extensive computer simulations, and rigorous testing against observational data. The ultimate aim is to develop sophisticated models of “smoking-gun signals” that will enable scientists to decipher the profound secrets hidden within gravitational wave observations. 

Queen Mary will play a leading role in the numerical simulations of gravity that are required to build and test these models. Dr Clough, Professor Figueras and Dr Kovacs are members of the Centre for Geometry, Analysis and Gravitation in the School of Mathematical Sciences, and experts in the formulation of theories beyond Einstein gravity and their study using computer simulations – the field of numerical relativity. They have used some of the largest supercomputers in Europe to study extreme dynamical gravity as a way of shedding light on problems in fundamental physics and play a lead role in the UK-based GRTL Collaboration that develops software to test the limits of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. 

The Simons Collaboration aims to bridge disciplines, drawing on expertise in theoretical physics, mathematics, numerical computation, AI-assisted data analysis, and gravitational wave observation. Professor Nicolás Yunes of Illinois Physics, who will serve as the collaboration’s director, emphasised the timely nature of this multidisciplinary effort. "We’re moving toward the era of precision gravitational wave physics," he notes. "This new era must be accompanied by a multidisciplinary effort to deepen our understanding of non-linear gravity. Otherwise, we will miss secrets encoded in the gravitational wave data, or worse, misinterpret our observations and be led in the wrong direction.” 

The Simons Foundation grant will support postdoctoral and graduate-student positions, foster travel and collaboration between member institutions, and facilitate numerous meetings throughout the year. 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 Study 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.