From the group
News & seminars.
Announcements, research updates, invited speakers, visitors, and opportunities.
Featured seminar
Dr. Aditya VijaykumarCanadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
Subpopulations of hierarchical mergers in gravitational-wave data and their implications
Abstract
The most recent observing run of the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA gravitational-wave detectors has presented multiple lines of evidence hinting at hierarchical mergers in the data. This talk gives an overview of the hierarchical-merger subpopulation, concentrating on spin, mass-ratio, and redshift distributions. It also considers theoretical interpretations in the context of binary evolution in dense star clusters and examines whether hierarchical mergers can explain observed correlations between effective spin, mass ratio, and redshift.
Invited speakers
Recent seminars.
The latest seminar program. Meeting times and titles may change.
Black holes and Carrollian fluids: what can they teach us about each other?
Sercan Husnugil · University of Waterloo
Numerical relativity as a tool for precision cosmology
Dr. Hayley Macpherson · University of Chicago
Slipping into the inspiral
Dr. Shilpa Kastha · Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics
Conserved Currents and Bilinear Forms for Quasinormal Modes in the Hyperboloidal Formalism
Marica Minucci · NBI, Copenhagen
Announcements
Group news.
Research updates, visitors, milestones, and opportunities.
Aniket Khairnar and Subhayu Bagchi defend their PhDs
Aniket Khairnar and Subhayu Bagchi successfully defended their PhD dissertations on July 10, 2026.
Nauman Ibrahim defends his PhD
Nauman Ibrahim successfully defended his PhD dissertation on June 22, 2026.
Ole Miss gravity group welcomes two postdocs
Károly Csukás and Nathan Johnson-McDaniel joined the group as postdoctoral scholars in fall 2021.
Welcome to Anuradha Gupta
Anuradha Gupta joined the University of Mississippi gravity group as an assistant professor.
Postdoctoral search in gravitational physics
The gravity group opened a postdoctoral search in strong-field gravity, compact objects, and gravitational-wave science.
Group members visit TAPIR at Caltech
George Pappas and Antoine Klein visited Emanuele Berti at Caltech's TAPIR group in November 2015.
Earlier stories
From the archive.
Press coverage, outreach, and group milestones preserved from the former website.
Emanuele Berti interviewed by National Geographic
National Geographic spoke with Emanuele Berti about measuring the spin of a distant supermassive black hole.
Emanuele Berti interviewed by Scientific American
Scientific American spoke with Emanuele Berti about using the cosmic microwave background to constrain the lifetime of the photon.
Weighing light with black holes
Group research used spinning black holes to place new limits on the possible mass of the photon.
Resonant shattering of neutron-star crusts
Jocelyn Read's work on neutron-star crusts was selected as a Physical Review Letters Editors' Suggestion and covered widely in the press.
Floating orbits around rotating black holes
An Italian National Institute for Astrophysics article highlighted group research on floating orbits and massive scalar fields.
Black-hole and neutron-star research at Ole Miss
A poster prepared for Senator Roger Wicker's visit presented an overview of the group's theoretical research.
APS Minority Bridge Program visit
Peter Muhoro visited the department to speak about helping students from underrepresented groups prepare for graduate study in physics.
Emanuele Berti receives an NSF CAREER Award
University and College of Liberal Arts publications highlighted Emanuele Berti's NSF CAREER Award for black-hole research.
New NSF grant for the Mississippi LIGO team
The Mississippi LIGO team received NSF support to prepare for the Advanced LIGO era.
Astronomy's New Messengers goes on tour
The group's gravitational-wave outreach exhibit returned at Shawnee State University and the University of Texas at Arlington.
Invited talks by Jocelyn Read
Jocelyn Read was invited to speak at three 2011 meetings on neutron stars and gravitational-wave astronomy.
Rethinking supermassive black-hole masses
Emanuele Berti commented on measurements suggesting that some supermassive black holes may be less massive than previously thought.
Welcome to the gravity group website
The group launched its former website to share research, people, talks, outreach, and news.
Black-hole review selected as a CQG highlight
A review by Emanuele Berti, Vitor Cardoso, and Andrei Starinets was selected as a Classical and Quantum Gravity highlight.
Vitor Cardoso receives an ERC Starting Grant
Vitor Cardoso received a five-year European Research Council Starting Grant.
Black holes are no joke
An astronomy outreach article took a playful look at black holes, Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, and the science behind the jokes.
Group visit to Princeton
Miguel Zilhão and Vitor Cardoso visited Frans Pretorius's group at Princeton to discuss recent research.
Ole Miss physicist leads million-dollar laser exhibit
An Ole Miss-led astronomy outreach exhibit premiered at the World Science Festival in New York City.
Computing time awarded at ICTS-CESGA
Collaborators received 500,000 CPU hours for binary-black-hole simulations on Spain's FinisTerrae cluster.
Gravity group visit at Ole Miss
Visiting and local researchers gathered at Ole Miss in May 2010.
Supercomputing time awarded to the group
The team received major computing allocations from the MareNostrum Consortium and Portugal's Milipeia cluster.
Ulrich Sperhake appointed adjunct professor
Ulrich Sperhake was unanimously appointed an adjunct professor in the Ole Miss Department of Physics and Astronomy.
LIGO observations narrow models of the Big Bang
University of Mississippi physicists contributed to research that placed new limits on primordial gravitational waves.
Coming soon: the first pictures of a black hole
Research by Emanuele Berti and Marta Volonteri was discussed in a New Scientist cover story about imaging black holes.
No naked black holes
High-energy black-hole collision simulations showed that head-on encounters radiate about 14 percent of their center-of-mass energy.