Past Events

Fast spinning pulsars are gyros with great stability and are also high-precision clocks in their reference frames. A pulsar or a pulsar-pair in a close orbit around a massive black hole will form an extreme-mass-ratio binary system (EMRB). EMRBs emit strong gravitational waves and they are prime targets of the future ESA LISA space gravitational wave mission. They are useful in physics, as they can provide tests to the gravity theories, through the gravitational wave experiments or pulsar timing observations or the combination of both. In this talk I will discuss how the orbital and spin dynamics of pulsars are affected by their host black holes' gravity and show how we can use EMRB to test various theories of spin-couplings in curved space-time. I will also discuss what are the relevant messenger carrier particles in these tests and the future aspects of the tests with the next generation instrumentation.