Staring into the Abyss: Imaging Black Hole Horizons
Avery Broderick
CITA
Millimeter VLBI has become a reality and sub-millimeter VLBI will be
feasible in the very near future. These techniques make possible the
imaging of the black hole horizons of at least two supermassive black
holes, those lying at the centers of the Milky Way and M87. Already results
have been obtained that have importance for fundamental gravitational
physics: whether or not black hole horizons exist. Future measurements
promise to test whether or not the Kerr metric is an adequate description
of strong gravity in the vicinity of supermassive black holes. In
addition, these observations are being brought to bear upon unresolved
astrophysical questions surrounding black hole accretion and outflows,
providing critical empirical input into jet-formation physics and the
inner structure of black hole accretion flows. I will discuss how these
measurements are being made, how they may be optimized in the near future
using existing observatories, what we expect to see and how they may be
used to address fundamental questions in black hole science.
Date: | Tuesday, 2 February 2010 |
Time: | 16:00 |
Where: | McGill University |
| Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, R.E. Bell Conference Room (room 103) |
Contact: | Robert Rutledge |
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