Black Hole Physics & Extreme Gravity
Probing the event horizons of supermassive and stellar-mass spacetime singularities.
Singularities, Event Horizons & Relativistic Accretion
Formed by catastrophic gravitational collapse or early-universe direct seed collapse, black holes warp spacetime so severely that nothing—not even light—can escape within their event horizon. Using global interferometry networks like the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) and high-energy observatories like Chandra and NuSTAR, researchers investigate relativistic jets, accretion disk physics, photon rings, and black hole thermodynamic entropy.
Breakthrough Discoveries
Polarized Light Image of Sagittarius A*
2024EHT revealed strong, organized, spiral magnetic fields around the Milky Way's central 4.1-million-solar-mass black hole.
First Direct Shadow of M87*
2019Global millimeter VLBI imaged the asymmetric photon ring of the 6.5-billion-solar-mass black hole in Messier 87.
Heaviest Binary Black Hole Merger (GW190521)
2020LIGO/Virgo detected an 85 + 66 solar mass merger forming a 142 solar mass remnant inside the pair-instability mass gap.
High-Energy & Interferometric Methodologies
Synthesizes an Earth-sized telescope array to achieve micro-arcsecond angular resolution at 1.3 mm / 230 GHz.
Measures the time lag of coronal X-rays reflecting off the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO).
Analyzes quasi-normal mode frequencies of coalescing black holes to test the 'No-Hair Theorem'.