Colloquium by James Stone, IAS
A variety of new results from general relativistic MHD models of black hole accretion flows in luminous systems (such as quasars and X-ray binaries) that include full radiation transport will be described. The models allow observationally important quantities such as the radiative efficiency, variability, and kinetic feedback in winds to be measured over a range of luminosities, from sub-Eddington to highly super-Eddington. An important question is how luminous black holes are fed from their surroundings, which requires modeling the accretion flow over many orders of magnitude in radial scale. New results regarding the formation of cold chaotic accretion flows onto the central black hole in elliptical galaxies such as M87 from kiloparsec down to near horizon scales will be presented, and a new "cyclic zoom" method that enables evolving such flows over cosmic time scales will be introduced.
Cookies will be available, starting at 3:45.
Host: Jane Huang