Research Line: Gravitation and Cosmology |
Lead Researcher(s): Cássius Anderson Miquele de Melo, Iara Tosta e Melo, Jean Carlos Coelho Felipe, Rodrigo Rocha Cuzinatto |
Description:
The standard theory for describing gravitational interaction is General Relativity (GR). It predicts the manifestation of gravitational effects through spacetime curvature. GR describes astrophysical objects such as neutron stars, black holes, orbital effects unexplained by Newtonian mechanics (such as Mercury’s secular perihelion shift), light ray deflection (producing gravitational lenses), and redshift effects of radiation near strong fields (which affect GPS system calibration, for example). Gravitational waves (GW) are another prediction of GR, dramatically confirmed by the detection of GW emitted during the coalescence of black hole pairs and neutron stars by the LIGO-VIRGO collaboration. GR also offers a model for large-scale universe dynamics, Cosmology. This explains the cosmic microwave background radiation, the origin and abundance of light elements, and large-scale structure of the universe. Despite all its success, general relativity and its resulting cosmology have limitations. Notably, GR predicts singularities and is a non-renormalizable field theory. In turn, the standard cosmological model is unable to offer a cause for the Big Bang (without the complement of the inflationary hypothesis) or to elucidate the nature of the universe’s dark sector. In this research line, we contribute to the study of gravitation and its cosmological consequences in various aspects. Examples include:
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