I started my PhD at the University of Oxford in October 2023. I am working with Bence Kocsis, and my research is focused on the interaction of background gravitational waves on binary black hole (BBH) systems. I did my undergrad at the University of Sydney, and I did an MSc in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics at Oxford in 2022.
GR predicts that BBH systems should inspiral due to gravitational wave emission. However, the time-scale over which this is predicted to happen is significantly longer than the age of the Universe, yet we still observe plenty of BBH merging events. This is known as 'the final AU problem'. In my project, I aim to get a better of understanding of the mechanism(s) that allow for BBH systems to merge on such short time-scales.