Fawzi Aly (SUNY Buffalo)

Date: Tue. March 4th, 2025, 11:30 am-12:30 pm
Location: Rock 221 Foldy Room

GEM Hunting in Multi-Messenger Astronomy

With upcoming gravitational wave (GW) detectors promising high signal-to-noise observations and increasingly sophisticated numerical simulations, GW astronomy is rapidly evolving. These advances offer new opportunities to probe General Relativity in extreme gravitational environments. This presentation explores the intriguing possibility that gravitational waves could carry subtle imprints of gravitational-electromagnetic (GEM) interactions, particularly in highly energetic systems such as charged black hole binaries, binary neutron star mergers, and neutron star–black hole mergers.

Using black hole perturbation theory, we investigate whether electromagnetic fields can influence gravitational wave signals—and vice versa. One possible avenue for studying such imprints is through the novel quadratic quasi-normal modes: GEM QNMs we recently reported. Understanding GEM interactions could open new directions for testing the minimal coupling principle, exploring alternative theories of gravity, and constraining beyond-standard-model physics, such as dark photons.