Testing General Relativity with black hole X-ray data: recent progress and future developments

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent progress and future prospects in testing General Relativity using black hole X-ray data, highlighting advancements in strong-field regime observations over the past five years.

Contribution

It summarizes the current state and recent developments in testing General Relativity with black hole X-ray data, emphasizing future research directions.

Findings

Significant progress in strong-field tests of General Relativity.

Black hole X-ray data complement gravitational wave and VLBI observations.

Future developments aim to improve the precision of these tests.

Abstract

The theory of General Relativity has successfully passed a large number of observational tests. The theory has been extensively tested in the weak-field regime with experiments in the Solar System and observations of binary pulsars. The past five years have seen significant advancements in the study of the strong-field regime, which can now be tested with gravitational waves, X-ray data, and mm Very Long Baseline Interferometry observations. Here I summarize the state-of-the-art of the tests of General Relativity with black hole X-ray data, discussing its recent progress and future developments.