Kai Hendriks

I am a postdoctoral researcher at Lund University, Sweden, working on the global fitting algorithm for the upcoming LISA gravitational wave detector.

I was previously a PhD student at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen where I investigated the astrophysical formation of gravitational-wave emitting binary black holes.

Feel free to contact me!
kai.hendriks@fysik.lu.se

NASA/ADS

arXiv

Research

The LISA data challenge

The scientific return of the upcoming LISA gravitational wave detector, a project adoped by the European Space Agency, will be enormous. Its signal will be composed of many different gravitational wave sources and will be so complex that there is no solution as of yet in how to extract source properties from it. At Lund University, we contribute to this challenge by proposing and testing different data analysis methods. Image credit: SRON

Binary black hole formation

Merging black hole binaries that emit gravitational waves can form and evolve in many different ways and environments. Each of these pathways may leave its unique imprint onto detected gravitational wave signals. The formation of binaries in dense star clusters may have been assisted by a third black hole. We study how the presence of the third black hole influences the observed gravitational wave signal and what properties of the three-body system we can probe. We found that the presence of a third black hole is expected to be measurable in next-generation detectors like the Einstein Telescope.

See Hendriks et al (2026), Hendriks et al (2024), Hendriks, Zwick & Samsing (2024), and Samsing, Hendriks et al (2024)

Multi-messenger
astronomy

Gravitational wave sources such as binary neutron star mergers are perfect sites for multi-messenger astronomy. Detection of gravitational waves along with electromagnetic emission from short gamma-ray bursts and kilonovae gives us multiple independent insights into these sources. With the Gravitational Wave Toolbox, we developed an easy-access tool to study gravitational wave detections and their synergies with electromagnetic counterparts. Image credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

See Hendriks, Yi & Nelemans (2023)

Binary neutron star
dynamics

Binary neutron star mergers are among the most complex objects in the universe, which makes their gravitational wave signals extremely rich in information. We studied the effect of the orientation of their individual spins, which induces orbital precession. We can find unique imprints of this in the dynamics, gravitational waves and mass ejecta of these systems that have the potential to be detectable.

See Chaurasia, [...], Hendriks, et al (2020)

Some of my friends and collaborators also have websites! Check them out here:

David O'Neill Lorenz Zwick Christopher Tiede Jaime Redondo Yuste Kristian Toccacelo Jose Ezquiaga

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