The School on Gravity: from motion to commotion

Abstract

Understanding the gravitational interaction is one of the great scientific endeavors of the 21st century. The Nobel Prize-winning discovery of gravitational waves in 2015, and subsequent detections by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration, have marked a revolutionary step forward in physics and astrophysics by opening an entirely new window for exploring the Universe. Future upgrades to these detectors, along with upcoming facilities such as LISA, the Einstein Telescope, and radio and optical instruments, promise other breakthrough discoveries that the next generation of scientists will need to interpret. The School on Gravity (22--26 June 2026, Copenhagen) aimed to introduce junior scientists--graduate students and advanced undergraduates with a background in general relativity--to a wide range of foundational topics in the exciting new field of gravitational-wave physics. Topics spanned from the theory of motion, to new challenges introduced by quantum physics, to the astrophysics of black holes and source modeling for gravitational-wave detectors. The School on Gravity took place at the legendary Auditorium A of the Niels Bohr Institute, inviting students and lecturers to challenge current paradigms in gravitational physics in the spirit of the quantum revolution that unfolded in this very room. These lecture notes aim at opening up those new ideas presented in Auditorium A to the rest of the scientific community.