How To Light Up a Black Hole: The Physics of Black Hole Accretion Flows

Promotional image for talk: Elements of a successful scientific talk

Speaker(s): Omer Blaes

Far from being dark, black holes are at the heart of the most energetic and luminous phenomena observed in the universe, from quasars to gamma-ray bursts. In fact, black hole power has actually had a significant ecological impact on the universe, affecting how entire galaxies formed and evolved. Understanding how all this works requires understanding how gravitational binding energy is released as matter falls into the hole. The entire process is complex (turbulent radiation magnetohydrodynamics!), but the basic elements within the process involve some very cute physical principles, and I will focus on what we have recently learned about these in this talk.

Colloquium

Junior and senior physics majors attend our biweekly colloquium series, held on Tuesday afternoons at 4:30 p.m. in Shanahan B460. The talks are open to all students and to the public, and are frequently attended by scientists from the other Claremont Colleges, Cal Poly Pomona, and others. The series features speakers from a broad range of institutions and fields of physics.