Mini-Workshop

Testing General Relativity with Black Holes

26 April 2025, Fudan University, Shanghai

Participants:

Cosimo Bambi (Fudan University, China)

Debtroy Das (Fudan University, China)

Xue-Mei Deng (Purple Mountain Observatory, China)

Indu Dihingia (TDLI/SJTU, China)

Masoumeh Ghasemi-Nodehi (Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, China)

Jia-Hui Huang (South China Normal University, China)

Yan-Gang Miao (Nankai University, China)

Swarnim Shashank (Fudan University, China)

Akhil Uniyal (TDLI/SJTU, China)

Rong-Jia Yang (Hebei University, China)

Zhe Zhao (Fudan University, China)

Up to 10 years ago, the theory of General Relativity was mainly tested in weak gravitational fields with experiments in the Solar System and radio observations of binary pulsars. Stellar-mass black holes were simply dark and compact objects in X-ray binaries with a mass exceeding the maximum mass for neutron stars. Supermassive black holes were dark astrophysical systems in galactic nuclei and they were too massive, compact, and old to be clusters of non-luminous bodies like neutron stars or planets. There was no evidence that the spacetime geometry around these objects was consistent with the Kerr solution of General Relativity. The past 10 years have seen a tremendous progress in this research field and we can now study the spacetime geometry around astrophysical black holes with gravitational waves, X-ray observations, and black hole imaging. The workshop will focus on recent studies to test the nature of astrophysical black holes and to use these objects as laboratories to discover new physics. 

The workshop will be in Room C101, Physics Research Building, Jiangwan Campus. Non-Fudan participants will stay at the Fengjing Hotel, which is close to Exit 7 of Xinjiangwancheng Station and at walking distance from the Physics Research Building. To see how to reach the Physics Research Building and the Fengjing Hotel, visit this page. 

Program

26 April (Saturday)

Room C101, Physics Research Building

Session 1 (Chair: Cosimo Bambi)

09:00-09:15 Opening remarks 

09:15-09:45 Yan-Gang Miao (Nankai University), Talk: Some progress in regular black holes

09:45-10:15 Jia-Hui Huang (South China Normal University), Talk: Radiative properties and images of a quantum black hole surrounded by a thin accretion disk

10:15-10:45 Xue-Mei Deng (Purple Mountain Observatory), Talk: Probing black holes beyond general relativity with bound orbits

10:45-11:15 Swarnim Shashank (Fudan University), Talk: Theory-agnostic tests of GR using X-rays and GWs

11:30-14:00 Lunch (restaurant on the 3rd floor of the old cafeteria building)

Session 2 (Chair: Swarnim Shashank)

14:00-14:30 Cosimo Bambi (Fudan University), Talk: Testing General Relativity with black hole X-ray data

14:30-15:00 Tao Wang (East China Normal University), Talk: An edge-sharpening mechanism of black hole shadows

15:00-15:30 Debtroy Das (Fudan University), Talk: Testing General Relativity and Probing Missing Physics from inspiralling BBHs on Time-Frequency plane

15:30-15:40 Short break

Session 3 (Chair: Debtroy Das)

15:40-16:10 Rong-Jia Yang (Hebei University), Talk: Observational properties of black hole in quantum fluctuation modified gravity

16:10-16:40 Akhil Uniyal (TDLI/SJTU), Talk: The future ability to test theories of gravity with black-hole shadows

16:40-17:10 Masoumeh Ghasemi-Nodehi (Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory), Talk: Testing the Strong-Field Regime through Synchrotron Radiation

17:30-19:00 Dinner (restaurant on the 3rd floor of the old cafeteria building)