PIRSA:24030113

Video URL

https://pirsa.org/24030113

New Insights into Strong Gravity from Accreting Black Holes

Kocherlakota, P. (2024). New Insights into Strong Gravity from Accreting Black Holes. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. https://pirsa.org/24030113

Kocherlakota, Prashant. New Insights into Strong Gravity from Accreting Black Holes. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Mar. 14, 2024, https://pirsa.org/24030113 

          @misc{ scivideos_PIRSA:24030113,
            doi = {10.48660/24030113},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/24030113},
            author = {Kocherlakota, Prashant},
            keywords = {Strong Gravity},
            language = {en},
            title = {New Insights into Strong Gravity from Accreting Black Holes},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics},
            year = {2024},
            month = {mar},
            note = {PIRSA:24030113 see, \url{https://scivideos.org/pirsa/24030113}}
          }

Prashant Kocherlakota Harvard University

Talk numberPIRSA:24030113
DOI10.48660/24030113
Source RepositoryPIRSA
Collection
Talk Type Scientific Series
Subject

Abstract

Recent horizon-scale images of Messier 87* and Sagittarius A* have been used to demonstrate that their spacetimes are well-described by the Kerr metric. The latter is a solution to the vacuum Einstein equations of general relativity, and is used to describe spinning black holes. While of fundamental importance, it has undesirable features such as a spacetime singularity or a Cauchy horizon. To find phenomenological resolutions of such features, using observations, studies of astrophysical processes in non-Kerr spacetimes have recently gained prominence. We will begin by briefly reviewing the current status of observational constraints on such alternatives. We will then demonstrate how future observations of the "photon ring" can grant access to new observables that will refine our physical understanding of strong-gravity. We will end by sketching how, using state-of-the-art numerical simulations, the energetics of relativistic outflows (jets) is universally described by a simple electromagnetic Penrose process (the Blandford-Znajek mechanism).

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