Carlo Heissenberg, a theoretical physicist at the Institute of Theoretical Physics (IPhT, CEA/CNRS), conducts research in quantum field theory, scattering amplitudes and gravitational waves. His work focuses primarily on the classical limit of scattering amplitudes and their application to the calculation of gravitational wave observables within the framework of the post-Minkowskian approximation.
ERC Starting 2026: Ultrarelativistic Eikonal Amplitudes: gravitational scattering at high energies (UREikA)
The discovery of gravitational waves – those minute vibrations in space-time predicted by Einstein – has opened a new window onto the Universe. To interpret the signals recorded by the detectors, physicists must be able to describe with great precision the motion of extremely massive objects, such as black holes or neutron stars, when they cross paths or collide. The EUREika project focuses on a situation not very well understood: when two objects move at speeds close to that of light. In this extreme regime, several questions remain open. How much energy is emitted in the form of gravitational waves? How is the trajectory of the objects altered by this emission? And what is the exact shape of the gravitational waves produced?
To address this, researchers will develop new computational methods derived from particle physics in order to describe these phenomena more accurately and to improve the models used to interpret observations from gravitational wave detectors. Beyond these applications, this work will make it possible to test some of the most fundamental ideas about gravity, including general relativity, which describes gravity on a large scale, and to answer long-standing questions about its behaviour at high energies.
The host institution for the UREikA project is the CEA.