TAPIR Seminar

I review some of the features of the galactic center that make it a good laboratory for extracting the multipole structure of the massive central compact object. This information will allow us to test some of the tenets that underlie our understanding of General Relativity such as the no-hair theorems. I comment on the time-line to experimentally measuring the quadrupole moment with existing and planned observations in the gravitational wave and electromagnetic spectrum. I conclude with a discussion of the theoretical infrastructure required to make a conclusive test of the cosmic censorship and causality conjectures as well as the regions of validity of the various approaches currently advocated. I focus in particular, on the importance of strong field resonant effects during the final stages of the inspiral.