Of the four known fundamental interactions in nature, gravity is the one most directly accessible to our senses and also the first one to be described theoretically, by Newton's force law more than 300 years ago. This makes it all the more intriguing that today gravitation in many ways remains the least understood of the four forces.
On the very largest, cosmological scales, applying the standard laws of classical gravity leads to enormous puzzles, including the unknown nature of dark energy and dark matter. On the very smallest scales, we are still searching for the fundamental quantum laws underlying and explaining Einstein's classical theory of general relativity from first principles. At intermediate length scales, observations of gravitational waves from black holes and neutron stars have opened a new window into our universe. These observations now allow us to test predictions of General Relativity with unprecedented accuracy. Our lively group pursues gravity research on all of these scales and can be roughly divided into Quantum Gravity (QG) and Strong Gravity (SG) activities.
Research themes
Quantum Gravity
Research in Quantum Gravity@Radboud addresses some of the big, open questions of fundamental physics: How can we unify quantum theory and general relativity to obtain a theory of quantum gravity? What is the quantum microstructure of spacetime at the Planck scale, and can it help us understand phenomena like dark energy and dark matter? What are the most effective computational tools to connect the quantum physics of the ultra-small with the physics of the large-scale universe?
