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Upcoming seminar
Upcoming seminar
Date: Feb. 04, 2026 @ 4:00 PM (in-person)
Date: Feb. 04, 2026 @ 4:00 PM (in-person)
Venue: Multimedia Room, Physical Sciences Building, IISc
Venue: Multimedia Room, Physical Sciences Building, IISc
Speaker: Silpa SasiKumar (Universidad de Concepción, Chile)
Speaker: Silpa SasiKumar (Universidad de Concepción, Chile)
Title: Single and binary black hole demographics with the Event Horizon Telescope and its upgrades
Title: Single and binary black hole demographics with the Event Horizon Telescope and its upgrades
Abstract: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has imaged supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the centres of two galaxies, M87* and Sgr A*, and resolved the jet bases in a few additional SMBHs. Ongoing ground- and space-based upgrades to the EHT are expected to significantly advance our understanding of black hole accretion and jet physics. We are developing ETHER (Event Horizon and Environs), a curated and expanding database of nearby single and binary black holes for EHT and next-generation EHT (ngEHT) studies. Originally developed for target selection, ETHER extends the transformative science enabled by M87* and Sgr A* to a much broader population of SMBHs, bridging the gap between these two extremes. This unprecedented demographic survey advances studies of accretion and jet launching, provides new tests of general relativity, enables measurements of black hole masses and spins in dozens of SMBHs and potentially resolves gravitationally lensed rings in a handful of them. It also opens the possibility of resolving binary SMBHs and tracking their orbital decay during the gravitational-wave-emitting phase. In this talk, after briefly touching upon recent EHT results, I will present the status of ETHER and its “gold” samples of single and binary black holes for present and future EHT imaging of shadows, rings, and accretion inflows, and discuss modeling results for jet bases. I will also review expectations of observing these gold targets with the EHT and its upgrades, assess the capabilities and limitations of the current EHT, and evaluate the feasibility of near-future ngEHT observations.
Abstract: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has imaged supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the centres of two galaxies, M87* and Sgr A*, and resolved the jet bases in a few additional SMBHs. Ongoing ground- and space-based upgrades to the EHT are expected to significantly advance our understanding of black hole accretion and jet physics. We are developing ETHER (Event Horizon and Environs), a curated and expanding database of nearby single and binary black holes for EHT and next-generation EHT (ngEHT) studies. Originally developed for target selection, ETHER extends the transformative science enabled by M87* and Sgr A* to a much broader population of SMBHs, bridging the gap between these two extremes. This unprecedented demographic survey advances studies of accretion and jet launching, provides new tests of general relativity, enables measurements of black hole masses and spins in dozens of SMBHs and potentially resolves gravitationally lensed rings in a handful of them. It also opens the possibility of resolving binary SMBHs and tracking their orbital decay during the gravitational-wave-emitting phase. In this talk, after briefly touching upon recent EHT results, I will present the status of ETHER and its “gold” samples of single and binary black holes for present and future EHT imaging of shadows, rings, and accretion inflows, and discuss modeling results for jet bases. I will also review expectations of observing these gold targets with the EHT and its upgrades, assess the capabilities and limitations of the current EHT, and evaluate the feasibility of near-future ngEHT observations.
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