Einstein Postdoctoral Fellow: Leo Stein

December 14th, 2012

My main interests lie in studying strong gravity from an astrophysical standpoint, a regime which has yet to be experimentally probed. Gravity is quite weak in terrestrial labs and the solar system, but the universe kindly gives us several astrophysical laboratories where gravity is strong. Two such natural laboratories are compact-object binaries and the very early universe. Learning something about strong-field gravity requires "clean" systems which we have a theoretical handle on (for example if we can say that the details of accretion physics are unimportant).

I will investigate comparable mass-ratio compact object binaries with an eye to placing constraints on corrections to general relativity (GR). Data from presently known pulsar binaries can be used
to constrain deviations from GR using statistical methods (Markov chain Monte Carlo). In the future, the direct detection of gravitational waves from the same systems will provide even better
constraints. I will also work on generating accurate gravitational waveforms from extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs). EMRIs can potentially serve as a sensitive probe of gravitational physics, but only if we are confident that our numerical models are sufficiently accurate—that our numerical methods resolve the physics, and that all the relevant effects (such as spin-curvature coupling and the gravitational self-force) have been included.

I've already begun collaborating with Eanna Flanagan, and I hope to collaborate with and contribute to the strong gravity community here at Cornell.