Professor Dr Alessandra Buonanno

Research Priorities: Theoretical physics, Gravitational Waves, Black Holes, Theory of Relativity, Quantum Optical Noise
Alessandra Buonanno is an Italian-American physicist. She is a leading theorist in the field of gravitational-wave physics. She is known for her work on waveform modeling, which has been essential for the detection of gravitational waves from binary systems of black holes and neutron stars as well as for the astrophysical interpretation of the measured signals.
Alessandra Buonanno's research focuses on the theoretical predictions of gravitational waves emitted by binary systems of compact, massive bodies such as black holes and neutron stars. To obtain highly accurate waveform models, she co-developed a new approach to study the two-body problem in General Relativity: the effective one-body (EOB) approximation. With this approach, the first analytical prediction of the gravitational wave signal from two merging black holes was achieved. The successful combination of numerical and analytical relativity methods is due to the initiative and significant contributions of Alessandra Buonanno and her research group. The goal is to develop the most accurate and efficient waveform models for gravitational wave measurements. These models are routinely used by her research group, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and the Virgo Collaboration to derive astrophysical, cosmological, and gravitational properties.
Alessandra Buonanno also pioneered research on quantum optical noise and high-precision measurements for gravitational wave detectors. She co-discovered that using quantum correlations between noise of photons and radiation pressure (especially the optical spring effect) can bypass limitations in LIGO and Virgo detectors imposed by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
She is especially interested in using gravitational wave observations to gain fundamental physical insights and study the nature of black holes and gravity in the highly dynamic regime of strong fields.