Gravitation and the large scale structure of the Universe

The main scientific objective of this project is investigation of the following extragalactic and cosmological gravitational phenomena: supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies and quasars, supermassive black hole binaries originating in galactic mergers, gravitational lensing, dark matter and its potential alternatives. Proposed investigations will in general involve three parts: theoretical considerations, numerical modeling/simulations and comparisons of modeling results with astronomical observations. We expect to obtain significant results which will improve our knowledge about: 1) effects of strong gravity in the vicinity of supermassive black holes, their activity, growth, radiation from their accretion disks and associated feedback processes; 2) supermassive black hole binaries, their progenitors, formation, accretion physics, coalescence, emission of gravitational waves and observational signatures; 3) different gravitational lensing effects and their applications for investigations of geometry and physics in vicinity of supermassive black holes, properties of clusters of galaxies, detection of distant sources, distribution of visible and dark matter, constraining cosmological parameters and studying the large scale structure of the Universe in different stages of its evolution. In addition to its scientific objectives, proposed project also aims to be basis for education of young scientists and international collaboration in this field.