The Simons Foundation announced today that it will fund a new multidisciplinary multi-institutional collaboration focused on strong gravity. The Simons Collaboration on Black Holes and Strong Gravity will support the work of gravity and black-hole experts working in theoretical physics, mathematics, numerical computation, AI-assisted data analysis, and gravitational wave observation to develop a robust theoretical framework for deciphering the secrets encoded in gravitational wave data, including possible extensions to Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
The $8 million grant will bring together a total of 12 co-PIs at 12 institutions, providing postdoctoral and graduate-student support, as well as travel between member institutions and various meetings per year. In addition to the 12 co-PIs, the collaboration will enlist the expertise of associates: physicists, mathematicians, and data scientists whose research programs are already immersed in these astrophysical mysteries. These associates include professors at the co-PIs’ institutions, as well as at over 20 other institutions.
The 12 co-PIs include Collaboration Director Nicolás Yunes at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Emanuele Berti of Johns Hopkins University, Vitor Cardoso of the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, Katy Clough of Queen Mary, University of London, Neil Cornish of Montana State University, Jonathan Gair of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein 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, 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.
I will serve on the Collaboration’s executive committee.
The JHU press release can be found here, and the UIUC press release can be found here.
