Prof. Scott A Hughes

Professor Hughes' research is in astrophysical general relativity, focusing in particular upon black holes and gravitational-wave sources. Some questions which drive his present work are:

What measurements can be made to test in detail the hypothesis that massive black hole candidates are in fact the black holes of general relativity?

What can we learn about the cosmic evolution of black holes and the structures that host them from future space-based gravitational-wave measurements?

Can we design a network of ground-based detectors to optimally measure the characteristics of important gravitational-wave sources?

Much of this work involves the use (and sometimes the abuse) of general relativistic perturbation theory.