Black Hole Perturbation Theory and Fundamental Fields on Curved Spacetimes

In this project, the PhD student will apply recently-developed methods in black hole perturbation theory in order to calculate the gravitational self-force determining the motion of compact binaries, in order to improve the modelling of Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals for (space-based) gravitational wave astronomy, and Intermediate Mass-Ratio Inspirals for ground-based detectors. More specifically, the researcher will apply the method of separation of variables for metric perturbations in Lorenz gauge on the Kerr spacetime, building on the work described in Phys.Rev.Lett. 128 (2022) 15, 151101. A second aspect of the project is to seek separable solutions for massive spin-2 fields on Kerr spacetime, following recent breakthroughs in the spin-1 case and the separable solutions in the spin-2 massless case.