CGCA Seminar – Nick Conroy

Dynamics in Upcoming Black Hole Videos

Dr. Nick Conroy
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has produced images of the supermassive black holes M87* and Sgr A*, and soon will release the first time sequences of images, or movies. I will review key results from the analysis of these millimeter images, including recent constraints on the spin of M87*. I will then discuss predictions for black hole movies, based on state-of-the-art general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) models. These movies are expected to capture the near-horizon dynamics of M87* and Sgr A*, offering insight into the surrounding accretion flow, novel methods for parameter inference, and potentially the first direct tests of black hole jet-launching.