DNRF Chair: Professor Vitor Cardoso

DNRF Chair:

Professor Vitor Cardoso

Period:

October 1, 2022 - September 31, 2025

Host institution(s)

Niels Bohr Institute - NBIA, University of Copenhagen

Black holes are the simplest, most compact, and physically elusive macroscopic objects in the Universe. Extraordinary in their ability to convert energy into electromagnetic and gravitational radiation, black-hole dynamics challenges our knowledge of partial differential equations, of numerical methods, and of the interplay between quantum field theory and spacetime geometry. The information paradox and the existence of unresolved singularities in general relativity point to deep inconsistencies in our current understanding of gravity and quantum mechanics. These issues lie at the heart of recent groundbreaking ideas such as the relationship between entanglement entropy and geometry, and drive efforts to complete the theory of semi-classical gravity. It is now clear that the main conceptual problems in black-hole physics hold the key to many fundamental issues in theoretical physics. The power to scrutinize black holes through observations must then match – and be informed by – theoretical advances. Hence, research on black hole physics is central for the new decades and will have an impact across the society.

Vitor Cardoso’s research uses black holes as engines of discovery, using them to understand the dark content of our universe, but also to test the very tenets of General Relativity.

As DNRF Chair, Vitor Cardoso will use the expertise at the Niels Bohr Institute to quantify quantum effects on astrophysical black holes, and to combine research strengths in astrophysics, quantum physics, numerical relativity and gravitational-wave data analysis, through a cross-disciplinary enterprise within the Niels Bohr Institute. This amounts to a truly inter-disciplinary endeavor and is set to produce insights that conventional approaches are unable to achieve.

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