Investigating mysteries in modern physics with gravitational waves

The detection of 90 gravitational wave signals produced by coalescing black holes or
neutron stars have opened up a rich discovery space for astrophysics, gravitation, particle and dark matter physics, and cosmology. They offer a new observational channel to address long-standing questions about the nature of gravity, decade old mysteries about the nature of dark matter (that makes up more than 80% of all matter) or the nature of matter under extreme conditions. To identify signatures of "new physics" in gravitational wave observations we need precise gravitational wave models.

In this talk I will give a brief summary of recent and future observations, and I will present an overview of recent advances in numerically modeling black holes in dark matter environments, coupled to beyond-standard model particles or in well motivated extensions of general relativity.