COLLOQUIUM 2026
When Gravity Waves
| Speaker | Professor Nicolás Yunes, Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA |
| Date/Time | Monday, 20 Jul, 3pm |
| Location | S11-02-07 Conference Room |
| Host | Asst/Prof Alvin Chua |
Abstract
Gravitational waves have given us a new way to study the laws of Nature in their most violent setting. In this talk, I will explain how waves from merging black holes and neutron stars let us test Einstein’s theory in the strong-field regime, search for hints of new particles or new interactions, and probe the interior physics of neutron stars. I will use two examples from recent work—black-hole ringdown and neutron-star tides—to show how “listening to spacetime” is becoming a precision tool for both astrophysics and fundamental physics. I will close with the opportunities that lie ahead with LISA and next-generation detectors.
Biography
Professor Nicolás Yunes embarked on his scholarly journey in Argentina and then migrated North shortly thereafter, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in Saint Louis in 2003 and a Physics Ph.D. at The Pennsylvania State University in 2008. Following his tenure as a Research Associate at Princeton University and a distinguished Einstein Fellowship at MIT and Harvard, he joined the faculty of Montana State University, where he was a Professor from 2011 to 2019. In 2019, he accepted a position at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he now holds court as the founding director of the Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe.
Professor Yunes has received many accolades, including the General Relativity and Gravitation Young Scientist Prize by the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation in 2015, and he was elected APS Fellow in 2023. He is also involved in education and outreach, writing a graduate textbook on gravitational waves (“Gravitational Waves in Physics and Astrophysics: An Artisan’s Guide”) and a popular book on tests of general relativity (“Is Einstein Still Right?”), and creating an Science Festival (“Celebrating Einstein”), an original planetarium show (“Einstein’s Gravity Playlist”), and an interdisciplinary spoken word show (“Rhythms of the Universe”).