Thursday, November 26, 2015, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
Michael Kramer, MPI Radioastronomie, Bonn
Abstract:
This week, we celebrate the centenary of Einsteinâtheory of general
relativity. When the theory was conceived, the number of experimental
tests to confront the theory with was limited. Since then we have come a
long way. In particular astronomical observations provide precision
tests that were inconceivable even 50 years ago. We use neutron stars
observable as pulsars to provide the most precise tests for strongly
self-gravitating bodies, to prove that gravitational waves exist or to
measure the effects of curvature of space time. We also attempt to
determine the properties of black holes, such as their mass and spin to
test the description of black holes within general relativity. One of
the highlights will be an image of the âadow" of the supermassive black
hole in the centre of our Milky Way. Soon we also expect that the direct
detection of gravitational waves opens up a new window to
EinsteinâUniverse. In all cases, neutron stars or black holes play a
crucial role. In this talk I will review some of the current and future
tests of general relativity, but will also mention other applications of
radio astronomy for fundamental physics, such as studying the
equation-of-state of super-dense matter.