The discovery of Gravitational Waves (GWs) in 2015 confirmed a prediction made by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity and led to a revolution in astronomy. These waves are produced when massive, compact objects (such as black holes and neutron stars) merge, creating ripples in spacetime that can be detected millions of light-years away. A decade later, researchers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have proposed how GWs could be used to investigate an enduring cosmological mystery - the existence of Dark Matter.

The research comes from UvA's Institute of Physics(IoP) and the Gravitation & Astroparticle Physics Amsterdam (GRAPPA). Their research, which is detailed in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, introduces an improved way to model how Dark Matter is affected by GWs caused by black hole mergers. By analyzing GWs with next-generation instruments, scientists will be able to discern the presence of this mysterious mass, assuming (of course) that it exists.

The research was led by Rodrigo Vicente, Theophanes K. Karydas, and Gianfranco Bertone from the UvA-IoP and the GRAPPA centre of excellence for Gravitation and Astroparticle Physics Amsterdam. As they describe, their work focused on how black hole binaries or other compact objects (i.e., neutron stars) co-orbit with each other and spiral inward to become much more massive black holes - known as Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs).