Astrophysics from the Maw of The Monster

Peter Maksym

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

The massive black holes that inhabit the cores of galaxies not only allow us to study physics under extreme conditions, they also play a central role in the formation and evolution of cosmic structure. The story of the universe is, in a very important sense, a story about how these black holes eat, grow, and regulate their environments.  

The full electromagnetic spectrum is needed to study these processes, but X-rays probe them most directly, and provide powerful spectroscopic diagnostics for the associated hot plasmas. X-rays can illuminate the death throes of stars shredded by tidal forces, the feeding frenzies of quasars long past, and the powerful winds generated by supermassive black holes in our own backyard.

Dr. Maksym will discuss some of the ways in which he investigates black holes via the electromagnetic radiation emitted on scales ranging from the event horizon to thousands of parsecs away. He will primarily focus on results from current X-ray missions like Chandra, as well as complementary multi-wavelength datasets. And he will discuss new opportunities presented by observatories currently planned for the next decade.