About this Event
Join us at Waterloo campus for a special guest lecture From Professor Douglas Lin on stellar evolution and black holes, followed by refreshments and an opportunity to discuss astronomy and astrophysics with Professor Lin and King's own experts. All are welcome!
Who is this event for?
This event is for anyone with an interest in astronomy - experience of studying or working in this field is not required to understand the lecture.
Agenda
15:25 - Welcome and opening remarks
15:30 - Lecture by Professor Douglas Lin
16:30 - Refreshments and Discussion
17:00 - Event Close
Stellar evolution, mergers of stellar mass black holes, and the growth of supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei
Active galactic nuclei are mostly powered by inflow through accretion disks onto central supermassive black holes. Beyond a few times their Schwarzschild radius, gravitational instability in these disks leads to self-regulated formation and evolution of massive stars which chemically enrich their neighbourhood along with stellar-mass black holes. These compact remnants are captured by coexisting massive main sequence stars, form close binaries, readily merge, and excite intense gravitational waves with potentially observable electromagnetic signatures. The massive stars' migration, with or without black hole cores, efficiently transporting mass regardless of the Eddington limit and promoting the rapid growth of supermassive black holes in the early Universe. Analogous physical processes are also relevant in the context of planet formation in protostellar disks. They account for the persistent super-solar metallicity, especially in Nitrogen and iron, inferred from broad emission lines of high and low redshift AGNs.
Speaker: Professor Douglas Lin
Professor Douglas Lin is Emeritus Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California and is Founding Director of the Kavli Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at Peking University. He holds a PhD in Astrophysics from Cambridge Universityand is a Royal Astronomical Society Honorary Fellow.
Having published over 300 papers, Professor Lin’s research interests include Planet formation, internal structure, and long term evolution; solar system dynamics; interstellar asteroids, star formation and interstellar medium; astrophysical hydrodynamics and stellar dynamics; theory of accretion disks; interacting binary stars; magnetosphere-accretion disk interaction, formation and dynamical evolution of stellar clusters; interacting galaxies; active galactic nuclei and black holes; intergalactic medium; gravitational waves.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Franklin-Wilkins Building, 1.16, Franklin-Wilkins Building, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
