A team of researchers led by Sizheng Ma, an undergraduate physics student in China who later pursued his PhD at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), has made a significant contribution to the understanding of black hole mergers and their aftermath. They detected a distinctive gravitational wave signature that comes from “frame dragging” of spacetime near the horizon of a binary black hole merger, captured by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2025. The results confirmed Albert Einstein’s theory on general relativity, providing new insights into strong gravity environments and paving the way for further research.
According to Ma, “By measuring this specific feature in a recent gravitational wave event, we were able to touch, in a sense, this strong gravity environment.” The team found that the signal was dramatically louder and clearer due to ten years of technological advances that reduced signal noise. Their theory matched nicely with what was seen in the actual event, confirming Einstein’s predictions.
The discovery has opened up new possibilities for studying black hole mergers and their aftermath. Ma and his colleagues have developed a “tool” for probing these strong gravity regions near the horizon of black hole mergers, which will enable scientists to make further progress in understanding how gravity fits with quantum theory.
Source: https://www.newswise.com/articles/researchers-detect-frame-dragging-around-merging-black-holes