Prof. Jessica Lu and the Keck Observatory Laser-Guided Adaptive Optics System.

Research Expertise and Interest

black holes, star and cluster formation, galactic centers, adaptive optics, astronomy, instrumentation, infrared instrumentation, astrometry

Research Description

Jessica Lu runs the Moving Universe Lab (MULab), which searches for free-floating stellar-mass black holes in our Milky Way galaxy using gravitational lensing. Her group also studies how the birth, life, and death of stars changes in extreme environments such as in massive young clusters and around the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center. These areas of research require high resolution images, time-domain photometry (star brightness), and precise astrometry (star positions).  The MULab utilizes observations and measurements from both space telescopes such as Hubble, JWST and ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics (AO) such as the W. M. Keck Observatory. Adaptive optics is a technology that corrects the blurring effects of the Earth's atmosphere to produce sharper images of the Universe. Prof. Lu works on several instrumentation teams that aim to improve AO on the ground including the Thirty Meter Telescope IRIS instrument, the 'imaka project to test very wide-field AO, and the W.M. Keck Observatory AO systems. Prof. Lu also works on improving astrometry and photometry with the Roman Space Telescope and leads the CuRIOS satellite constellation project with the Space Sciences Laboratory to continuously monitor most of the sky for transient events associated with black hole and star microlensing, mergers, or explosions. Finally, Prof. Lu also co-leads the AstroTech instrumentation summer school aimed at broadening participation in the development and construction of astronomical instrumentation.

In the News

Astronomers May Have Detected a ‘Dark’ Free-Floating Black Hole

A team led by University of California, Berkeley, astronomers has for the first time discovered what may be a free-floating black hole by observing the brightening of a more distant star as its light was distorted by the object’s strong gravitational field — so-called gravitational microlensing.

AI Reveals Unsuspected Math Underlying Search for Exoplanets

AI, also called machine learning, can reveal something deeper, University of California, Berkeley, astronomers found: unsuspected connections hidden in the complex mathematics arising from general relativity — in particular, how that theory is applied to finding new planets around other stars.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.
August 12, 2019

Einstein showed Newton was wrong about gravity. Now scientists are coming for Einstein.

NBC News Online
Jeremy Deaton
Einstein's theory of general relativity, published more than 100 years ago, has been tentatively confirmed in the most comprehensive test of the theory to date. The study was conducted near the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy by a team of UCLA researchers that included Jessica Lu, now an assistant astronomy professor at Berkeley. "We now have the technological capacity to test gravitational theories in ways we've never been able to before," Professor Lu says. "Einstein's theory of gravity is definitely in our crosshairs." Link to video. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.
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July 30, 2019

Einstein's General Relativity Theory Is Questioned But Still Stands For Now, Team Reports

Science Magazine

Einstein's theory of general relativity, published more than 100 years ago, has been tentatively confirmed in the most comprehensive test of the theory to date. The study was conducted near the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy by a team of UCLA researchers that included Jessica Lu, now an assistant astronomy professor at Berkeley. "Einstein's right, at least for now," said UCLA physics and astronomy professor Andrea Ghez, one of the study's co-lead authors. "We can absolutely rule out Newton's law of gravity. Our observations are consistent with Einstein's theory of general relativity. However, his theory is definitely showing vulnerability. It cannot fully explain gravity inside a black hole, and at some point we will need to move beyond Einstein's theory to a more comprehensive theory of gravity that explains what a black hole is." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News. Stories on this topic appeared in more than a dozen sources around the world, including Technology.org, Graffio Tech (Italy), SciTech Daily, and FARS News Agency (Iran).

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