Papers

The magnetic Penrose process (MPP) is one of the most efficient mechanisms for extracting rotational energy from a magnetized Kerr black hole (BH), enabling charged particles to reach very-high energies. We investigate this process in Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive BH at the Galactic center (GC), focusing on its ultra-high-efficiency regime, in which neutrons undergo beta decay inside the BH ergosphere. As a key novelty, we compute the neutron production spectrum in the accretion flow directly from the nuclear reaction kinematics and follow neutron trajectories in the Kerr spacetime to determine the population that reaches the ergosphere and undergoes the MPP. From this population, we derive the spectrum of accelerated protons and show that Sgr A* can accelerate them up to PeV energies, strengthening its interpretation as a candidate Galactic PeVatron. We further compute the gamma-ray and neutrino emission produced through hadronic interactions of the escaping protons in the Central Molecular Zone. The predicted gamma-ray fluxes exhibit distinctive spectral features that could provide an observational signature of the MPP and may constitute a non-negligible contribution to the very-high-energy emission detected by H.E.S.S. and HAWC. The associated neutrino fluxes remain below the diffuse Galactic component inferred by IceCube, but may still contribute to the high-energy emission from the GC. Remarkably, the predicted signals lie within the projected sensitivity of SWGO for all scenarios considered here and, for some models, only a factor of a few below the nominal CTAO sensitivity, while KM3NeT/ARCA and IceCube-Gen2 will provide complementary tests. Our results establish the MPP as an observable mechanism for extracting BH rotational energy, providing a direct connection between horizon-scale physics and multimessenger observations that can be extended to other magnetized BHs.

Black holes, with their strong gravitational fields, provide an important testing ground for theories of gravity beyond General Relativity. Among the many proposed alternatives, considerable recent work has focused on scalar-tensor theories in which a scalar field couples to higher-curvature terms. The black hole solutions that arise in such theories can differ significantly from the Schwarzschild and Kerr solutions of General Relativity. Characteristic properties of these black holes include instabilities, shadows, and gravitational wave spectra, which can be used to constrain the couplings of the underlying theories.

A gravitational-wave (GW) detector records a linear mixture of local couplings under the assumption that extra polarizations enter geodesic deviation. Vacuum general relativity (GR) admits two transverse-traceless (TT) amplitudes. It remains to determine the largest set of couplings that can sit in that mixture, and whether a tensor-only arm-length result selects GR uniquely. The little group \(E(2)\) of a null four-momentum classifies the strain amplitudes \(\mathbf{p}=(p_{+},p_{\times},p_{x},p_{y},p_{b},p_{\ell})\), commonly written \(h_{P}\), which determine the electric tidal tensor along a ray. Geodesic deviation, recorded as differential arm length, therefore contains only those \(p_{P}\) that enter that tensor. Lorentz mixing at helicity \(\pm1\) supplies a gravito-magnetic (GEM) field that does not enter the tidal tensor. if GEM field is static, that does not propagate as a wave. A time-varying helicity-\(\pm1\) current sources a GEM wave that enters the mixture as a coupling, to be isolated by its measured quantity. For a radiation-zone wave that depends only on retarded time, \(\betag_{\perp}=\hat{\mathbf{k}}\times\partial_{t}(p_{x},p_{y})\), and the eight couplings are \(\Pvec=(\mathbf{p},\betag_{\perp})\). Here we adopt unified field equations on \(\mathbf{p}\) to clarify the origin of each component of \(\Pvec\); the measured quantity of each coupling then isolates the polarizations in that mixture, which favors identification of distinct polarizations and model tests.

The exceptional gravitational-wave event GW231123 exhibited unusually high total mass and near-extremal spins, while revealing strong waveform-dependent variations in its inferred source properties. Several follow-up studies favored a lensed interpretation, with reduced waveform systematics, raising the question of whether apparent lensing evidence could arise from waveform modeling systematics. Using GW231123-like numerical-relativity injections, we find that lensing degrees of freedom can reduce waveform discrepancies and yield non-negligible lensing support. However, this behavior is not systematic across injections, and cases where all waveform and lens models favor lensing while reducing waveform discrepancies are not found.

Over the last decade, gravitational-wave science has developed from an era where a single detection was a Nobel-winning achievement to an (almost) everyday occurrence. The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration's flagship scientific results are now their catalogues of detections, which include a comprehensive set of analysis results characterising the astrophysical properties of sources, and their implications for fundamental physics and cosmology. We review discoveries from the fourth observing run (O4) of the LVK network. The most recent catalogues each include $\sim100$ new detections. Among these new detections are remarkable single discoveries: the loudest signals detected so far, and sources unlike those seen before. However, significant advances in the field are coming from population-level analyses, leveraging the increasing sample size to infer constraints on the astrophysical distribution of merging compact binaries, potential deviations to general relativity, and the expansion rate of the Universe. Analyses of the latest data have revealed evidence for multiple subpopulations of sources. These observations provide a unique probe into the evolution of massive stars and the formation of coalescing binaries. Our understanding of gravitational-wave signals and their sources will continue to deepen with more observations. The final catalogue from O4}is due for release in December 2026, and future observing runs with even greater detector sensitivity are planned. These will bring even larger catalogues, and additional loud signals, continuing to advance gravitational-wave science.

Tidal perturbations from nearby compact objects can drive resonant "kicks" in extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs), imprinting potentially detectable phase shifts in LISA-band gravitational waveforms. We provide a systematic survey of these tidal resonances across EMRI parameter space in the weak-tide, three-body hierarchy, treating the perturber as stationary on the resonance timescale. For generic Kerr orbits we compute (i) resonance contours in $(p,e,x)$ that locate where each $(n,k,m)$ resonance is encountered, (ii) the associated resonance duration, and (iii) the jump amplitudes in the angular momentum $L_z$ and the Carter constant $Q$ (with $\Delta E$ vanishing by time-translation symmetry in the stationary model). Combining jump amplitudes with resonance durations, we construct a practical ranking of the resonances most relevant for waveform modeling, while emphasizing that even modest resonances may still be important through their influence on the phase at which subsequent resonances are entered. All contour and jump data are publicly available.

Massive-field perturbations on black-hole and wormhole backgrounds can form long-lived quasinormal ringing; this behaviour is not confined to brane-world spacetimes, but it is also not universal across compact-object geometries. Recent work on a brane-world black hole reported an unusual limiting behaviour in which the real oscillation frequency tends to zero as the scalar mass grows. We test how general this phenomenon is in the Bronnikov–Kim effective brane-world geometries, treating both the black-hole and wormhole sides of the same families. The comparison uses two complementary numerical treatments: Leaver's continued-fraction method for the black-hole side, after reducing the wave equation for the second Bronnikov–Kim family to rational form, and Chebyshev pseudospectral collocation for regular wormhole throats. The black hole of the second Bronnikov–Kim family shows the standard quasi-resonant pattern: the damping rates of the scalar branches considered here become very small, but the real frequencies remain finite. Representative wormholes from the first and second Bronnikov–Kim families also develop increasingly long-lived massive scalar modes, and extending the second-family wormhole scan to larger field mass reduces the damping by more than a factor of four relative to the massless case. Thus the robust brane-world effect found here is the appearance of long-lived massive-field ringing in both black holes and wormholes, whereas the vanishing of the real frequency is metric- or branch-dependent.

We investigate the dynamics of horizon soft degrees of freedom associated with near-horizon BMS supertranslations in an evaporating Vaidya-Schwarzschild black hole spacetime. Considering the dynamic nature of the supertranslation parameter, we derive its effective action directly from the Einstein-Hilbert action. The resulting Goldstone sector is intrinsically coupled to the evolving black hole dynamics, with the mass function entering the evolution of the Goldstone modes while the Goldstone configuration contributes to the dynamical evolution of the black hole mass. Azimuthal periodicity and regularity at the poles select the physically admissible angular sector and yields a mass-dependent $selection\ rule$ on the azimuthal modes. Consequently, the spectrum of horizon-supported Goldstone modes evolves with the black hole mass; as the horizon shrinks during evaporation, the horizon is left with a progressively reduced set of lower-order modes. The evaporation thus induces a dynamical filtering of the horizon soft sector, arising intrinsically from the black hole mass dynamics. These results provide an effective gravitational framework linking near-horizon BMS symmetry, dynamical Goldstone modes, and black hole evaporation, suggesting a direct connection between macroscopic horizon evolution with the microscopic organization of the gravitational soft degrees of freedom residing on the horizon.

A new condition involving the complexity factor, a structure scalar arising from the orthogonal splitting of the Riemann tensor, is generated at the boundary of a spherically symmetric anisotropic fluid. This condition leads to the generation of a model, without invoking any further constraints on geometry or matter variables. The model generated is physically reasonable and suggests that there is a non-zero, positive minimum constraint on the complexity scalar value evaluated at the surface. This suggests that vanishing complexity is a globalized constraint which does not apply at the boundary, specifically for compact objects in the strong-gravity regime.

Long-duration gravitational-wave modelling must resolve fast orbital motion together with slow dissipative evolution while preventing small numerical errors from accumulating into secular phase drift. Here we ask whether the finite-time evolution map itself can be learned as an explicit, differentiable, structure-preserving object and then repeatedly composed through a complete inspiral. We construct three neural-flow architectures: a symplectic and slimplectic flow on Galley's doubled phase space, [SINFONIA-J0]; a Taylor-anchored flow, [SINFONIA-J1]; and a Magnusian flow that learns the finite-time dissipative correction in the interaction picture, [SINFONIA-J2]. Applied to a 2.5PN neutron-star inspiral, all three expose the same controlling mechanism: long-time accuracy is governed not by pointwise map error alone, but by its signed projection onto a single secular channel fixed by energy–angular-momentum balance. Encoding this structure allows the learned maps to remain accurate through $10^{2}$–$10^{5}$ window compositions to coalescence at timesteps of a full orbital period and beyond, reaching chained phase errors orders of magnitude below a benchmark slimplectic integrator at lower cost. The same secular structure can also be exploited for physics inference: when the channel is left unconstrained, the accumulated phase retains enough information to recover an un-modelled dynamical-friction-like force, both parametrically and as a learned function of separation. Network-off controls isolate the contribution of learning from the analytic structure already built into each map. These results establish a proof of concept for structure-preserving learned evolution maps as tools for fast long-duration integration and physics inference in gravitational-wave source modelling.

We investigate the tidal forces experienced by massive particles in radial free fall in the quantum Oppenheimer–Snyder black hole, a loop quantum gravity correction to the Schwarzschild geometry that describes the exterior of a bouncing dust ball. Using an orthonormal tetrad adapted to a freely falling observer, we show that the radial and angular components of the tidal tensor reproduce their Schwarzschild counterparts at large distances but reverse sign in the interior. The angular zero remains confined between the Cauchy and event horizons and coincides with the latter only in the extremal limit. A particle released from rest does not reach the center, it stops at a turning point inside the Cauchy horizon, where the ratio of the tidal components is independent of the parameters of the solution and is fixed by the transverse equation of state of the effective source. Solving the geodesic deviation equations for two sets of initial conditions, we find that the radial deviation vector attains its maximum at the minimum of the metric function, exactly for one set of initial conditions and asymptotically for the other, and remains finite throughout, in contrast with the Schwarzschild case, in which it diverges at the singularity. This regularity originates in the bounce rather than in a regular core, and therefore protects timelike radial infall while leaving radial null geodesics unaffected. Examining the full range of the quantum parameter, we find that its sign determines whether the tidal sector possesses any of this structure, while its magnitude determines only whether that structure is hidden: beyond the extremal value the geometry becomes horizonless, and the entire deformation history, bounce included, is exposed to distant observers.

We derive the consistency conditions governing the propagating content of linear shear-free perturbations of Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker cosmologies in metric $f(R)$ gravity. The divergence of the shear-free constraint is shown to be the total momentum-conservation equation and therefore does not imply geodesic flow. Its projected time derivative instead supplies a nontrivial integrability condition. Scalar, vector, and tensor sectors must then be tested separately. Shear-freeness removes the independent transverse-traceless electric-magnetic Weyl pair, so no ordinary $+$ or $\times$ tensor gravitational wave survives. The scalaron is not removed algebraically, but its four-variable harmonic system must remain in the time-dependent consistent subspace generated by the shear-free constraint and all of its time derivatives. For a geodesic shear-free congruence in the spatially flat expanding de Sitter patch, this excludes every nonzero fixed comoving scalar harmonic, including the healthy $R+\alpha R^2-2\Lambda$ model with $\alpha,\Lambda>0$. Vector modes obey a curvature-dependent global eigenvalue condition whose right-hand side is negative for positive-density matter with $f'>0$ and $1+w>0$; hence no nonzero vector harmonic survives on that branch. The familiar coasting $R^3$ example evades this sign obstruction only because it lies on an $f'<0$ branch. Thus tensor radiation is absent in the imposed shear-free sector, whereas scalar radiation is not excluded kinematically but remains a model- and background-dependent constraint-closure question.

The non-extensive entropy models applied to the black-hole horizon are connected to the generalized Einstein–Hilbert action, $f(R)$, via the Wald entropy formalism. We demonstrate that quark star configurations characterized by the MIT bag model under this modified gravity approach conform to the observational lower and upper bounds established for compact objects linked to HESS J1731$-$347 and GW190814. Furthermore, we assess the effective energy conditions and corresponding speed of sound to evaluate the physical plausibility and stability of the stellar configurations. All non-extensive entropy models studied satisfied these conditions. Our findings show that the exotic compact objects offer a compelling and credible framework for exploring aspects of non-extensive entropy models, such as the Barrow, Tsallis-Cirto, and Rényi formalisms, and vice versa.

The odd- and even-parity gravitational perturbations of a Schwarzschild black hole are governed by the distinct Regge-Wheeler and Zerilli potentials, yet their quasinormal-mode (QNM) spectra are identical in vacuum. Building on our previous study of the odd-parity Regge-Wheeler spectrum [M. Ould El Hadj and S. R. Dolan, arXiv:2608.16283], we investigate the corresponding even-parity Zerilli problem and compare the two sectors under the same perturbation of amplitude $\epsilon$ at radius $r_0$. Using the Chandrasekhar-Detweiler relation, we derive an exact relation between the normalized Wronskians and show that Schwarzschild QNM isospectrality is not preserved under an identical nonzero localized defect. We find that the even- and odd-parity repelling-point branches approach the same Schwarzschild QNM frequencies at large $r_0$, with their first parity-dependent separation appearing at order $1/\mathcal R^2$, where $\mathcal R=r_{0*}/M$ is the dimensionless tortoise-coordinate location of the defect. The corresponding exceptional points (EPs) form two shifted sequences with the same asymptotic spacing in the tortoise coordinate, while their relative displacement is fixed by the phase of the asymptotic Chandrasekhar-Detweiler factor. The critical perturbation amplitudes share the same exponential decay rate in the two sectors, whereas the ratio of their asymptotic prefactors is fixed by the modulus of the same factor. We further find that the even- and odd-parity EPs connect the same neighboring QNM overtones, with nearly identical arclengths for the corresponding spectral bridges. Finally, the exceptional degeneracy is parity selective: at identical values of $(r_0,\epsilon)$, a pair of QNMs may coalesce at an EP in one parity sector while remaining distinct in the other, leading to a corresponding difference in the local pole structure of the ringdown response.

We construct an evolving wormhole cosmological model from a Morris–Thorne metric with a separable, time-dependent shape function in a spatially flat Friedmann–Lemaitre–Robertson–Walker background, deriving the corrected wormhole energy-momentum tensor and a volume-averaging procedure that yields a modified Friedmann equation with a redshift-dependent wormhole correction term. We show that the shape-function index and throat-evolution exponent combine into a single macroscopic exponent $\beta$, and we demonstrate that the resulting wormhole equation of state is consistent with this geometric averaging. All traversability conditions are verified. Confronting the model with cosmic chronometer, DESI Data Release~2 BAO, and standard BAO data across seven dataset combinations, our findings show that all combinations are mutually consistent, with the joint fit giving a present-day expansion rate intermediate between local and CMB-inferred values, a deceleration-to-acceleration transition consistent with independent determinations, and an effective dark-energy equation of state close to, but distinguishable from, a pure cosmological constant. The evolving throat radius offers a novel, geometry-specific observable for discriminating wormhole spacetimes from phenomenological dark-energy parametrisations.

To uncover how the intrinsic metric of a relativistic compact object governs macroscopic wave phenomena, we establish a theoretical framework mapping the charge dependent spatial geometry of a Reissner-Nordström (RN) black hole onto the coherent response of an analogue curved surface. By solving an exact spatial geodesic boundary value problem on an isometrically embedded equatorial slice, we extract the discrete multi-loop path-length spectrum and convert this geometric backbone into a physical wave field via a finite-path surface Huygens-Fresnel construction. We analytically compute the arbitrary order winding trajectories alongside their high winding accumulation limits, demonstrating that the analogue charge acts as a precise physical dial that reconfigures the event horizon throat and fundamentally reorganizes the discrete path sequence. Furthermore, we find that this underlying geometric deformation uniquely dictates the macroscopic interference, revealing that steady state spatial fringes, spectral resonance combs, and transient temporal echo ladders are intrinsically unified physical projections of a single charge controlled path spectrum. This systematic parameter to response methodology establishes a rigorous theoretical bridge between strong field gravitational lensing and tabletop transformation optics, providing a highly tunable blueprint for future multi domain analogue gravity experiments.

The masses of Galactic pulsars in binaries measured through radio timing point to structure in the mass distribution with implications for dense matter and astrophysical formation processes: a bimodal shape with peaks at ${\sim} 1.3\,M_\odot$ and ${\sim} 1.6\,M_\odot$, with a cutoff above ${\sim}2\,M_\odot$. However, this observed population of radio pulsars is shaped not only by intrinsic pulsar properties, such as birth masses, binary evolutionary pathways and dense-matter constraints, but also by observational effects. In existing catalogs of pulsar mass measurements, observational selection effects influence (i) which systems are detected in the first place (detectability) and (ii) which systems yield well-measured masses (measurability). In this work, we revisit the radio pulsar population distribution in the context of observational effects associated with pulsar radio timing. Simulating systems of radio pulsars and timing observations, we track the process by which a given system ends up in an observational dataset and estimate the impact of the binary and pulsar parameters. We fold this selection function into hierarchical population inference and extract the intrinsic astrophysical distribution of pulsars observed with radio timing. We jointly infer the populations of pulsar mass, companion mass, orbital eccentricity, orbital period and pulsar spin period. Selection effects have minimal impact on the mass distributions, but more significantly affect other parameters. The ratio of circular-to-eccentric systems shifts from an observed $1\!:\!1$ to an astrophysical, selection-corrected $2\!:\!1$ ratio, while the true population is shifted toward longer orbital and spin periods than observed.

We study the relativistic transformation of temperature for effective cosmological fluids with negative pressure within a covariant thermodynamic framework. The Lorentz transformation of temperature is derived for barotropic fluids with $p=w\rho$ and for the (generalized) Chaplygin gas with $p=-A/\rho^\alpha$. For barotropic fluids with constant negative equation-of-state parameter, we show that negative pressure suppresses the growth of temperature under relativistic boosts. In contrast, the Chaplygin gas exhibits a qualitatively different behavior due to its density-dependent pressure, leading to a monotonic increase of the transformed temperature with velocity. The dependence of the relativistic temperature on the relative velocity and background energy density is illustrated through representative examples.

We show that Gravity from Entropy (GfE) exhibits a tensor-propagation pathology on generic FLRW backgrounds. In vacuum, in the symmetry-inheriting single-multiplet sector, and for the algebraic perfect-fluid constitutive embedding, the strict-principal TT system has a nonzero real characteristic only when \(\dot H=K/a^2\). Away from this locus the temporal principal roots become complex, signaling a high-frequency hyperbolicity obstruction. Under the stated isotropy assumptions, a rank theorem further shows that one foundational multiplet cannot provide the isotropic bivector response needed to remove this problem.

The strong gravitational interaction of counter-propagating quantum field modes is of foundational importance to the trans-Planckian problem of black hole horizons. This article, in memory of Renaud Parentani, is primarily an exposition of Renaud's attempt, using perturbation theory, a large $N$ approximation, and spherical reduction, to capture a mechanism by which those interactions might quench the trans-Planckian near-horizon quantum field correlations. Before giving a detailed account of Renaud's calculation, the trans-Planckian problem is briefly introduced, and the paper concludes with a discussion of related issues and questions.

Recent baryon acoustic oscillation measurements from DESI Data Release 2, when combined with CMB and supernova data, strengthen the motivation for exploring departures from $\Lambda$CDM in the late-time expansion history. Because an evolving dark-energy equation of state and an interaction within the dark sector can produce partially degenerate effects on the background expansion, their observational signatures should be assessed simultaneously. We first consider an interacting $w_0w_a$CDM model with $Q=\beta H\rho_{\rm de}$, using Planck and ACT CMB data, DESI DR2, and DES-Dovekie supernovae. Allowing the dark-energy equation of state to evolve substantially weakens the preference for a nonzero coupling, while the preference for dynamical dark energy persists. The interaction provides essentially no additional improvement in the best fit, suggesting that part of the coupling preference found in more restricted interacting models may reflect a degeneracy with dark-energy dynamics. We then examine the same interaction for three one-parameter dynamical dark-energy trajectories: thawing, mirage, and generalized emergent dark energy (GEDE). The role of the interaction depends strongly on the assumed trajectory. The thawing and GEDE models favor sizable couplings of opposite signs, whereas the mirage trajectory already closely follows the dark-energy evolution preferred by the data and provides little support for an additional interaction. These models also predict markedly different signatures in structure growth, ranging from enhanced matter clustering in the interacting thawing model to strong suppression in interacting GEDE. These contrasting growth signatures, despite substantial degeneracies at the background level, highlight late-time large-scale-structure observations as a promising avenue for distinguishing dark-energy dynamics from dark-sector interactions.

Primordial black hole (PBH) calculations usually treat rare curvature peaks as isolated collapsing regions. Using fully nonlinear $3+1$ numerical-relativity simulations in a radiation-dominated Universe, we demonstrate that neighbouring primordial curvature perturbations need not map one-to-one onto PBHs: they may ultimately disperse, collapse collectively into a single PBH, or undergo distinct local collapses and form more than one PBH. In the family of two-component profiles studied here, the latter outcome is a pair of PBHs, identified by the coexistence of two disconnected apparent horizons on at least one time slice. We introduce a nonspherical quasi-local compaction diagnostic based on the Hawking mass and referenced to a round flat-FLRW sphere of equal area. It retains the angular structure of the curvature field and reduces to the standard Misner-Sharp compaction function in spherical symmetry. The global maximum of this diagnostic, $\mathcal K_{\rm form}$, provides an empirical indicator of whether at least one PBH forms, with a transition near $\mathcal K_{\rm form,c}\approx0.56$ and modest profile-dependent scatter. For forming bimodal profiles, we supplement the nonlinear compactness with a signed linear surface strength evaluated on the same probing spheres. The viability of the weaker local branch and the competition between the local and common-enclosing branches improve the empirical discrimination between single- and double-PBH outcomes. Our results therefore show that the maximum curvature amplitude alone does not determine the collapse outcome, which also depends on the spatial extent, characteristic scales, and geometry of the surrounding curvature environment.

We study scalar perturbations of a seven-dimensional Kerr–AdS black hole with three independent rotation parameters. In this geometry, the Klein–Gordon equation separates into one radial and two angular second-order linear ordinary differential equations, each with five regular singular points. We apply the Hill determinant method to compute analytic expansions of the accessory parameters in two different parameter regimes. The resulting accessory parameter expansions coincide with those obtained from the instanton part of the Nekrasov–Shatashvili function of four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ quiver gauge theories. These expansions are then used to derive perturbative expressions for the angular eigenvalues in the slowly rotating limit and for the quasinormal mode frequencies in the small black hole limit.

Numerical relativity (NR) simulations provide the most faithful representation of the gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by binary black hole (BBH) systems during merger. In the context of GW astronomy, tasks such as parameter estimation can require vast numbers of waveform evaluations per second across the entire parameter space. Since performing full NR simulations for each evaluation is not computationally feasible, interpolating methods for existing NR waveforms, known as surrogate models, have been developed with marked success. In this paper, we build on our previous work to introduce methods to train a fast surrogate model based on neural networks in order to generate BBH merger waveforms, including the fundamental (2,2) mode, as well as the (3,3), (2,1), (4,4), (3,2), (4,3) and (5,5) higher-order modes. Applying a pretraining step on approximant data before fine-tuning on NR data allows us to smooth out the parameter space, and making use of the parallelization ability of GPUs to project the NR waveforms in the inclination-phase $(\iota, \phi)$ sphere during training allows the fitting of all the explored modes simultaneously. The developed surrogate model, DANSur\_HM, achieves average mismatches of the order of $10^{-4}$, with the worst mismatch at $2.5\times10^{-3}$, and achieves throughput above $6\times10^5$ waveforms/second on an NVIDIA V100 GPU. Parameter estimation tests confirm the usefulness of the inclusion of higher modes.

The phase coherence of primordial perturbations shapes the acoustic peaks of the CMB and is regarded as a key signature of inflation. Inflationary scenarios at different energy scales, thus with different durations, are commonly expected to leave different levels of coherence. We show this expectation fails: because the curvature perturbation is conserved on super-Hubble scales, the coherence at recombination inherits a value fixed by the observed primordial spectrum alone. This holds irrespective of the inflationary energy scale and the subsequent expansion history.

We compute the excitation factors of Kerr-de Sitter black hole quasinormal modes using two different techniques: a Heun function representation and an expansion of the solution in terms of hypergeometric functions. Exceptional points at which the complex frequencies of different overtones coincide are a generic feature of the Kerr-de Sitter quasinormal mode spectrum. Near exceptional points, the modes exhibit a "hysteresis phenomenon" that was previously found for Kerr black holes perturbed by massive fields and the absolute value of the excitation factors of the individual modes is significantly enhanced, while they acquire nearly opposite phases. We extrapolate the excitation factors to small values of the cosmological constant and find good agreement with previous calculations in the Kerr limit.

We develop a canonical ADM framework for gravitational backreaction during inflation. Our approach extends the formalism used to compute cosmological correlators by applying it to the evolution of the quantum background, which we identify with the metric one-point function. The aim is to assess the quantum stability of inflationary geometries under gravitational backreaction. Within this framework, the backreaction is determined by the expectation values of the Hamiltonian constraint and the equations of motion for the spatial metric. Working in the exact de Sitter limit, we apply the framework to a massless minimally coupled spectator scalar field and the physical graviton polarizations. At one loop, their backreaction renormalizes the relation between the cosmological constant and the Hubble parameter without inducing any secular departure from de Sitter evolution, in agreement with previous results. We perform the calculation using a hard momentum cutoff and show that a fixed physical cutoff allows the homogeneous background equations to be renormalized with time- and background-independent coefficients, in contrast to a fixed comoving cutoff. Finally, we demonstrate that the explicit representation of the backreaction depends on the gauge condition imposed on the metric fluctuations, as well as on the background-fluctuation split. Nevertheless, these different representations are related by a gauge transformation and are therefore physically equivalent.

Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) provide a unique laboratory for probing strong-field gravity and complex relativistic dynamics. We study a tidally deformed EMRI composed of a stellar-mass secondary orbiting a supermassive (non-)rotating black hole embedded in an external, adiabatically varying tidal environment. These systems provide a restricted, yet astrophysically motivated, realization of the relativistic three-body problem, expected to appear in active galactic nuclei, with a clear hierarchy of masses and radiation-reaction timescales. The external tidal deformation breaks the axisymmetry of the Kerr spacetime, rendering the geodesic dynamics non-integrable and giving rise to chaotic motion. The resulting signature of non-integrability is characterized through Poincaré maps and rotation curves constructed from the ratios of the fundamental frequencies of bound radial, polar, and azimuthal motion. We identify two prominent plateaus whose widths increase with the tidal field amplitude, signaling a transition from weak to strong chaos. We then demonstrate the sensitivity of the chaotic dynamics to the orientation of the orbit relative to the tidal field. We further analyze the proper-time evolution of the action-angle variables, showing that the angle combinations associated with the dominant commensurabilities are phase locked, thereby allowing the associated tidal contributions to induce secular changes in the constants of motion, whereas off-plateau angle combinations circulate. These results clarify the dynamical significance of the prominent plateaus and provide a novel phase-space characterization of tidal resonances in EMRIs. Finally, we discuss the potential role of radiation-reaction effects in driving EMRIs through tidal island crossings and the implications for gravitational-wave inference with future detectors.

Supermassive binary black holes embedded in gas-rich environments are promising multi-messenger sources for pulsar timing arrays and future space-borne gravitational-wave interferometers. Their electromagnetic emission is governed by nonlinear plasma dynamics around the binary and is expected to inherit variability associated with the orbital motion thereof. Because active galactic nuclei are intrinsically stochastic, identifying robust binary signatures requires predictive models that connect large-scale circumbinary flows to the black holes. Previous relativistic simulations of accreting binaries have mostly focused on smaller separations and lower spins. We perform three-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a relaxed, magnetized circumbinary disk accreting onto an equal-mass binary black hole with a separation of $30$ gravitational radii and dimensionless spin $\chi=0.9$. At these separations, the mini-disks around each black hole are persistent mass reservoirs but still show pronounced amplitude modulations governed by the eccentric circumbinary disk and the sloshing gas between the mini-disks. We analyze how the magnetic flux is transported from the circumbinary disk to the horizons, launching powerful dual jets with energy extraction efficiencies reaching $\approx 40\%$. The horizon-threading flux and jet luminosity alternate between the two black holes, producing an on-off dual-jet state. The wide jet funnels interact above the binary and form a persistent current sheet favorable to reconnection. We explore the influence of mini-disk thermodynamics, comparing efficient and inefficient cooling inside the cavity. Hotter mini-disks are less massive, exhibit weaker coherent periodicity, and launch less luminous jets despite comparable horizon-threading magnetic flux.

In this work, we build on Ref.~[Phys.~Rev.~D 112, 124060 (2025)], where we derived the dynamics of an electrically charged binary system at second post-Newtonian (2PN) order, by extending the analysis, at the same PN accuracy, to the associated emission of electromagnetic and gravitational radiation. We focus on non-spinning binaries that evolve quasi-adiabatically along a sequence of circular orbits, and compute the 2PN expression for the corresponding total energy flux at infinity. With respect to the well-known case of a neutral binary, the presence of charge induces both a new leading-order electromagnetic contribution of dipolar nature and additional charge-dependent corrections in the gravitational sector. To account for this richer phenomenology, we extend both the PN-matched multipolar post-Minkowskian and the effective field theory approaches to the radiation sector of charged binaries, with exact agreement for the contributions computed independently in both formalisms. We derive the radiative symmetric-trace-free multipole moments of the vector and gravitational fields at 2PN order. In doing so, we also compute 2PN-accurate charge-dependent corrections to the spherical multipoles of the waveform emitted by the binary, including a new memory contribution sourced by the stress-energy tensor of the electromagnetic radiation. These results lay the foundation for developing accurate waveform models capable of assessing the observational signatures of electric charge in gravitational-wave signals.