Title: imaging nearby supermassive black holes: recent results and future prospects 

Speaker: Rusen Lu 

 
Abstract: Imaging nearby supermassive black holes provides a new astrophysical laboratory, allowing us to test general relativity in the extremely strong gravitational field around black holes and to study physical processes such as mass accretion and jet formation. (Sub)millimeter Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations can achieve the highest spatial resolution in current astronomical observations. In recent years, global (sub)millimeter VLBI observations have made unprecedented progress in black hole imaging and have captured the images of two nearby supermassive black holes. In this talk, I will present some recent results obtained with the Event Horizon Telescope and the Global Millimeter VLBI Array and discuss some future prospects. 

 
Bio: Rusen Lu obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Cologne in 2010 and from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2018, he returned to China and joined Shanghai Astronomical Observatory. His research interests are in the area of high resolution radio astrophysics, with particular emphasis on imaging studies of nearby supermassive black holes.  

Time: 14:00-15:00PM, 3/Jan, Wednesday 

Venue: Room 508 (large seminar room), Department of Astronomy 

You can also access the colloquium via :

https://m.koushare.com/topic-sc/i/physics_sjtu