How much information can we gain by pushing numerical relativity to its limit by simulating black hole scattering encounters? My latest paper (below) explores these extreme regions of the black-hole scattering parameter space using simulations generated using the Spectral Einstein Code (SpEC).

Three papers from the Multiscale Self-Force (MSF) collaboration on the arXiv yesterday that made use of the BHPToolkit. The first was "Spin-aligned inspiral waveforms from self-force and post-Newtonian theory" by Loïc Honet et al. arxiv.org/abs/2510.16112

Groundbreaking new image! The EHT reveals the dynamic environment around black hole M87*. The 2021 image shows a distinct shift in polarization patterns, tracing changes in magnetic fields near the event horizon. eventhorizontelescope.org/new-eht-imag...

Recent paper the cites the BHPToolkit: "Systematic errors in fast relativistic waveforms for Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals" by Hassan Khalvati, Philip Lynch, Ollie Burke, Lorenzo Speri, Maarten van de Meent, Zachary Nasipak, arxiv.org/abs/2509.08875

A Decade of Gravitational Waves This is just a quick post to mark the fact that it is now ten years to the day since the first detection of gravitational waves by Advanced LIGO. The acronym LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. It wasn't until February 11th 2016 that…

New paper on the arXiv today about systematic errors when modelling the gravitation waveform from extreme mass ratio inspirals and their impact on LISA data science Huge thanks to my collaborators, especially Hassan Khalvati, for getting this project over the line! 🧪⚛️🔭🧮 arxiv.org/abs/2509.08875

I’m incredibly proud to be part of this and to have my simulations turn into the first publicly available scattering and dynamical capture waveforms! Below is a plot I made for the Einstein Toolkit Blue Book (arXiv:2503.12263) showing the waveforms SXS:BBH:3999 (scatter) and SXS:BBH:4000 (capture).

When simulating orbiting black holes, we move our grid with the holes! One of the key lessons of general relativity is coordinates are meaningless. We exploit this to choose comoving coordinates where the metric changes as little as possible. www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4WG... 🧪⚛️🔭

Welcome to the #LECSTalks! series, where we showcase the people, activity, and science taking place around the LISA Early Career Scientists community. 🎤 Today we feature Ben Leather, postdoctoral researcher at the MPI for Grav Physics, talking about Waveform Modelling with Gravitational Self-Force.

🍾The LIGO - Virgo - KAGRA Collaboration has announced the detection of the 200th candidate gravitational wave signal in this fourth observation period O4!

I spent almost 2 hours painstakingly copying the orbits of all 128 Saturnian moons from the announcement MPEC and reformatting them for visualization... Behold, here are the orbits of ALL 128 MOONS OF SATURN. This isn't just a moon system—it's a literal asteroid belt around Saturn! 🧪🔭☄️

I just don't know what else to say at this point except call your reps (5calls.org) and keep fighting. Do not ignore the chaos. Keeping your head down will not protect you 🔭 #PlanetaryScience #Exoplanets nasawatch.com/ask-the-admi...

The hardest part of creating a design? Posting it on social media, but anyway, here it is! Neutron stars are insanely dense,(teaspoon of neutron star would weight 4 billion tons on Earth). Some are pulsars, like beacons in space or/and magnetars! 🔭Store: kategraphiccreations.etsy.com #sciart

"The team predicts that the two neutron stars will spiral slowly toward each other in a cosmic dance, ultimately colliding in a kilonova explosion." Inspired by @skuthunur.bsky.social article & thanks to @astro-jje.bsky.social for patiently answering all my silly binary star questions! #Sciart

The 🎉200th paper 🎉 that cites the BHPToolkit: "Lensing and wave optics in the strong field of a black hole" by Juno C. L. Chan, Conor Dyson, Matilde Garcia, Jaime Redondo-Yuste, Luka Vujeva, arxiv.org/abs/2502.14073

Ever wonder how gravitational wave detectors like LISA would hear the signal of binary black holes orbiting around a supermassive black hole? 🔭 Well check out my first 1st author paper investigating that very topic, live on the arXiv today! 🔥📄 arxiv.org/abs/2502.10591 Explainer in 🧵👇 1/10

#February11 is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science #IDWGS. Meet some of our international #WomenInSTEM through #HumansOfLIGO 1/🧵

A new major update to the Teukolsky package has been released (version 1.1.0). A major new feature the the ability to PN expand various Teukolsky radial functions (contribution from Jakob Neef)

Ok doomscrollers, here is a HAPPY news story from Gizmodo about LISA, the gravitational wave observatory that will be launched by ESA, with NASA support, in the mid-2030s (I’m quoted, as are @jakepost.tech & Emanuele Berti). 🧪🔭⚛️

A very fascinating paper went up on the arXiv today! Jesse Han & El-Badry et al. reanalysed the 21 known 'hypervelocity' stars in the #milkyway. They find strong evidence that the LMC (Large Milky/Magellanic Cloud) has a supermassive black hole at its core! 🤯 arxiv.org/abs/2502.00102

When things go well, preparing for a lecture is one of my happy places. I get to read, and understand better, stuff that I'm interested in. I get to make diagrams and animations, always fun. Here is an animation of the motion of a star in a disk galaxy for your viewing pleasure: 1/ 🧪🔭

Hello @bsky.app, here's to looking into more #bluesky and beyond... 😉

Woke up this morning to see the sad news of the Palisades and Eaton fires. I hope everyone, their families, and pets are ok. I can't imagine what kind of anxiety it is wondering if your home is ok or not :( Here's some info on the fires based on a project I was working on in 2019. 1/11

First arXiv paper of 2025 that cites the BHPToolkit: "Post-adiabatic waveform-generation framework for asymmetric precessing binaries", Josh Mathews, Adam Pound, arxiv.org/abs/2501.01413

amazing terminology for the hypothetical moon of a moon

Happy birthday to “the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy”! Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin completed her thesis on January 1st, 1925*. She found that stars are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, counter to the idea of the time, that the Sun and Earth were made of similar materials.

Could we tell whether anyone in our galaxy uses a warp drive? This sounds like a crazy question, but it can be answered using numerical GR (one of the fun highlights of the annual theory meeting presented by Katy Clough) 🧵1/7

Why is it when people dunk on how useless maths is, they always chose the quadratic formula and the Pythagorean theorem? As if these aren’t foundational and practical concepts you can learn at a highschool level

I visited #Tokyo, #Kyoto, #Osaka, #Nara and Mt. #Fuji for ~2 weeks. #Japan, is a cool place with amazing people! I do travel sketchbooking so I thought I would share my sketches. Usually, they’re scribbled at the sites in awkward positions, but the sketches feel way more organic that way.

Recent paper that cites the BHPToolkit: "Ringdown of a postinnermost stable circular orbit of a rapidly spinning black hole: Mass ratio dependence of higher harmonic quasinormal mode excitation" by Daiki Watarai, arxiv.org/abs/2408.167...

🎉New paper day🎉 A tale of tails! Finally resolved in fully nonlinear 3+1d numerical relativity with @sxs-collaboration.bsky.social simulations. Late-time tails in nonlinear evolutions of merging black holes De Amicis et al. arxiv.org/abs/2412.06887 What's it all about? 🧪⚛️🔭🧮 1/15

Dec 8 - EFT / model building and the anomalous perihelion of mercury arxiv.org/abs/1106.1568 Wells explores how a model building / EFT approach to explaining Mercury's orbit would have worked. He introduces 3 ideas that all can work, and are realized in GR in different gauges.

(6/7) Outside of physics, I’m an avid climber with over 300 outdoor climbs across four countries (trad, sport, and bouldering). Here are my stats if you’re curious:

(3/7) In 2022, I started my postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (AEI) in Potsdam, Germany. Here, I extended my work to include black hole scattering with comparable masses using Numerical Relativity as part of the @sxs-collaboration.bsky.social.

(2/7) I earned my MPhys in Physics from the University of Manchester (2018) and a PhD in Mathematical Sciences from the University of Southampton (2022). My PhD focused on using black hole perturbation theory to model small black holes scattering off supermassive black holes.

(1/7) As I’m new here I thought I should introduce myself! My name is Olly Long and I am a researcher working on modelling the binary black hole problem in General Relativity.

"The patchwork of gravitational radiation research" Doodle opposite the introduction of the Proceedings of the 1982 Les Houches lectures, Eds. Nathalie Deruelle and Tsvi Piran. Apparently the art is due partly to Nathalie and partly to Philippe Tourrenc. 🧪⚛️🔭🧮

I had a hard time finding women physicists here. So I made a starter pack for #female and #under-represended #minorities in #physics, in short #FURMIP. Please spread the word and let me know if you would like to be added. go.bsky.app/2JeYsDz

Hello, new followers! This account will mostly post about new science from members of the SXS collaboration. Sometimes we make neat visualizations, too! Check out our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Lw... 🧪⚛️🔭

Here is a visualisation of one of my Numerical Relativity simulations with @sxs-collaboration.bsky.social’s Spectral Einstein Code (SpEC). The initially unbound system loses enough energy at closest approach to become bound leading to a merger. It’s one of the coolest looking simulations I’ve done!

MOAR EVIDENCE FOR THE GRAVITATIONAL WAVE BACKGROUND! Using MeerKAT (super sensitive telescope array) the MPTA team have also found supporting evidence (with their assumptions and models) of the GWB that other PTAs announced last year. This is further independent verification! The Universe rattles!

@bot.astronomy.blue signup

I model the gravitational waves that come from binary black holes where one is a supermassive black hole and the other is a much smaller (but still pretty huge) stellar mass black hole, known as Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals. As you can see, these things get pretty complicated 🧪⚛️🎢🔭🧮

attempting to collect #scicomm focused #physics and #astronomy accounts into one #starterpack! this list is by no means complete—if I've missed you, please just shoot me a DM. go.bsky.app/NvQERru

Proud to announce that I'm now at the point in my career that I'm not only being invited to publish in scam journals, but I'm also being invited to be an editor of a scam journal

New paper the cites the BHPToolkit: "Analytic solution for the motion of spinning particles in Kerr space-time" by Viktor Skoupý, Vojtěch Witzany, arxiv.org/abs/2411.16855

[5/5] I will post mostly about gravitational waves and the LISA mission, which is the focus of my career. I probably won't be able to help myself from posting about other things like New Mexican cuisine, cycling, and mountains. I will try to avoid politics. Eager to get to know all of you! 👋

What is the difference between gravitational-wave signals measured by LIGO and pulsar timing arrays? Well lots of things, but mainly the mass of the black holes. This infographic summarises the differences. 👀🕳️💫

🎉 It's new paper day! 🎉 I'm thrilled to share my new paper: "Gravitational self-force with hyperboloidal slicing and spectral methods." arxiv.org/pdf/2411.14976 So, what is this all about? 🧵 /6 🧪🔭⚛️ #🧮

My first post on this platform! Hello and welcome to my little corner. I will be posting regularly here soon, so come back for more and yes do follow! In the meantime check out the PBS Nova show “Decoding the Universe: Quantum“ that recently came out! Fascinating stuff! m.youtube.com/watch?v=t06a...