Probing the nature of black holes: Deep in the mHz gravitational-wave sky.

Black holes are unique among astrophysical sources: they are the simplest macroscopic objects in the Universe, and they are extraordinary in terms of their ability to convert energy into electromagnetic and gravitational radiation. Our capacity to probe their nature is limited by the sensitivity of our detectors. The LIGO/Virgo interferometers are the gravitational-wave equivalent of Galileo's telescope. The first few detections represent the beginning of a long journey of exploration. At the current pace of technological progress, it is reasonable to expect that the gravitational-wave detectors available in the 2035-2050s will be formidable tools to explore these fascinating objects in the cosmos, and space-based detectors with peak sensitivities in the mHz band represent one class of such tools. These detectors have a staggering discovery potential, and they will address fundamental open questions in physics and astronomy. Are astrophysical black holes adequately described by general relativity? Do we have empirical evidence for event horizons? Can black holes provide a glimpse into quantum gravity, or reveal a classical breakdown of Einstein's gravity? How and when did black holes form, and how do they grow? Are there new long-range interactions or fields in our Universe, potentially related to dark matter and dark energy or a more fundamental description of gravitation? Precision tests of black hole spacetimes with mHz-band gravitational-wave detectors will probe general relativity and fundamental physics in previously inaccessible regimes, and allow us to address some of these fundamental issues in our current understanding of nature.

Modified dispersion relations and a potential explanation of the EDGES anomaly.

The Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionisation Signature (EDGES) collaboration has recently reported an important result related to the absorption signal in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation spectrum. This signal corresponds to the red-shifted 21-cm line at z ≃ 17.2 , whose amplitude is about twice the expected value. This represents a deviation of approximately 3.8 σ from the predictions of the standard model of cosmology, i.e. the Λ CDM model. This opens a window for testing new physics beyond both the standard model of particle physics and the Λ CDM model. In this work, we explore the possibility of explaining the EDGES anomaly in terms of modified dispersion relations. The latter are typically induced in unified theories and theories of quantum gravity, such as String/M-theories and Loop Quantum Gravity. These modified dispersion relations affect the density of states per unit volume and thus the thermal spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background photons. The temperature of the 21-cm brightness temperature is modified accordingly giving a potential explanation of the EDGES anomaly.

Universality of quantum gravity corrections.

We show that the existence of a minimum measurable length and the related generalized uncertainty principle (GUP), predicted by theories of quantum gravity, influence all quantum Hamiltonians. Thus, they predict quantum gravity corrections to various quantum phenomena. We compute such corrections to the Lamb shift, the Landau levels, and the tunneling current in a scanning tunneling microscope. We show that these corrections can be interpreted in two ways: (a) either that they are exceedingly small, beyond the reach of current experiments, or (b) that they predict upper bounds on the quantum gravity parameter in the GUP, compatible with experiments at the electroweak scale. Thus, more accurate measurements in the future should either be able to test these predictions, or further tighten the above bounds and predict an intermediate length scale between the electroweak and the Planck scale.