The Institute of Physics of the Silesian University in Opava (until 2019 the Institute of the Faculty of Arts and Science in Opava) has been focusing on research of the Universe and exotic objects in it for several decades. Thanks to the recent worldwide success of the first Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) image of a black hole shadow, they are becoming increasingly close to each of us, and at the same time bringing the whole of humanity closer to understanding the Universe and using new knowledge to the benefit of our technological civilisation. Scientists from the Institute of Physics in Opava are involved in many areas of research. For example, they have found a way to detect previously only theoretical wormholes (very popular in science fiction movies for time and space travel), how to extract energy from black holes, or how to involve the whole world in "hunting" particles coming from a mysterious hidden substance in the universe using only a mobile phone.

Black holes are a constant attraction

Understandably, the most popular objects for physicists to study are the fascinating objects called black holes. While astronomers can't observe them directly (even the famous 2019 image isn't a picture of a black hole, just its shadow), they do observe their effects on the matter around them on a variety of scales. They are known to be stellar black holes (remnants of collapsed giant galaxies), very massive black holes in the centres of galaxies, or even distant and therefore quite old objects called quasars - probably the cores of very old galaxies with giant black holes in their centres. Understanding the phenomena associated with these black holes, whether in their vicinity or in the immediate vicinity of the so-called event horizon, is just the tip of the iceberg of the ambitions of theoretical physicists at the Institute of Physics in Opava.

Supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic

Scientists from the Institute of Physics in Opava regularly receive funding from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GAČR) for research on black holes and other exotic objects. One of these projects, which is now in the second half of its solution, is the scientific research entitled "Testing strong gravity through black holes", whose investigator is Dr. Roman Konoplya. The aim of the project was to search for precise solutions to the gravitational effects of black holes in their immediate surroundings. "We studied optical effects such as the shadow of a black hole - in fact, we could see this in the famous 2019 image. After the famous experimental verification of the existence of gravitational waves, we were also interested in other theories of gravity, as black holes are extremely massive objects surrounded by a strong gravitational field. Understanding black holes is still a major challenge and research on these exotic objects is still in its infancy. Significantly, Albert Einstein himself started everything with his thought revolution, but there were not enough techniques to verify his then timeless ideas. It is only now, more than 100 years later, that we have those capabilities and can successfully continue Einstein's steps," Dr. Konoplya describes his scientific goals.

More than 20 articles have been published in prestigious international journals under this grant, some of which have been shortlisted as valuable papers in the scientific community worldwide. They have been awarded the prestigious "Highly Cited Paper" or "Hot Paper" designation.

There is no article like an article

In everyday life, the term "article" refers to a short thematic text that can be read in newspapers, magazines, or on Internet news servers. The preparation of such an article is often determined by the editor's workload and usually (though not always) takes several hours. A scientific article, however, has a much more arduous path: its author has to develop a hypothesis, make the necessary observations, summarise the new findings in technical English and provide appropriate formulae, graphs, diagrams and citations. The preparation of such a scientific article can take years, and its success in the scientific community depends on the editorial review of the scientific journal in question.

It is therefore understandable that the mere acceptance of a scientific article for publication is a very strong satisfaction and reward for the scientist and his/her team. And if such an article is cited in other scientific papers, its value increases even more significantly. A truly successful paper can achieve the designation of "Highly Cited Paper". Such a paper is in the top 1% of the best papers based on the number of citations received compared to other papers published in the same field in the same year. The second major milestone for a given paper is the designation "Hot Paper". It is cited frequently enough in a given two-month period to be in the top 0.1% of papers compared to other papers in the same field in the same period.

b> that we commonly read on the Internet or in newspapers are then based on these scientific ones, while for the lay reader they only summarize the results of these scientific advances in a more understandable way. Thus, if a general reader of popular science texts comes across some interesting information on the Internet, for example, about space research, he or she can be fairly certain that it is the output of just such a highly cited scientific article, which is the result of a lot of research effort. In this way, people can easily "filter out" nonsensical claims from truly credible news, since correct popular articles always include the author and the source of the original scientific work.

Successful articles from the Institute of Physics in Opava

In the last few years, more than 10 papers by scientists from the Institute of Physics in Opava have been awarded the "Higly Cited Paper" award. These papers deal with various aspects of relativistic astrophysics and theoretical physics, in particular the description of the behaviour of matter around extreme objects such as black holes, cosmology or observations of extreme objects using X-ray satellites. Thanks to these awards, physicists from Opava are among the world's top researchers, especially in the field of black holes. It is therefore possible that the latest interesting facts about black holes and similar objects in the next documentary series or popularization articles will once again be due to the tireless inventiveness of scientists from the Institute of Physics in Opava.