Topical collection: Testing the Kerr spacetime with gravitational-wave and electromagnetic observations

Abstract

One of the Holy Grails of observational astronomy is to confirm the prediction that black holes in the Universe are described by the Kerr solution of Einstein’s field equations of general relativity. This Topical Collection provides a status report of theoretical and experimental progress towards confirming the “Kerr paradigm” through X-ray astronomy, gravitational lensing, stellar tidal disruption events, superradiance, and gravitational-wave observations of black hole binary mergers.