Physics in Canada / La Physique au Canada - 2010 (66.2)

Warped views: observing black holes

Author(s)
Latham Boyle
Luis Lehner
Institution
Perimeter Institute
Perimeter Institute / University of Guelph

Although we can’t look inside a black hole, observing the strongly curved space-time in its vicinity would be the next best thing. In this article, we explain several ideas to do just this: by looking for light rays which are wrapped into loops as they pass near the black hole’s horizon; and by looking for the striking electromagnetic and gravitational wave signals that are generated when two black holes merge.