Colloquium
Resonances in general relativity
Speaker: Béatrice Bonga (Radboud University, Netherlands)
Resonances are ubiquitous in nature. In the first part of my talk, I will focus on resonances due to the interaction of two black holes orbiting a central massive black hole. Such tidal resonances will influence the gravitational waves emitted by such a system and can be observable with future space-based gravitational wave detectors such as LISA. The second part will be about the resonances in neutron stars. In particular, I will focus on one of the natural modes of the neutron star called the interface mode. This mode lives near the core-crust boundary and can be excited in the final phases of a binary inspiral through a resonance effect. When this happens, orbital energy is transferred to the star resulting in the melting of the crust. This is likely observable by the third generation gravitational wave detectors.
I am an Assistant Professor in Physics at Radboud University, where I do research in theoretical physics. In particular, I focus on foundational questions in general relativity and predictions for future gravitational-wave observatories such as the Einstein Telescope and LISA.