BHOLES13
catdynamics | August 8, 2013The workshop on Massive Black Holes at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics continues with today's session on "Co-evolution of black holes and their host galaxies".
I continue a semi-liveblog of the proceedings.
As before, talks are online here - podcast, audio and video options; pdfs of talk slides added as speakers get them in.
First up is Yohan Dubois (IAP / Oxford Univ.) - on "AGN feedback in adaptive mesh refinement cosmological simulations" - high res AMR simulations of massive gas rich halos at z ~ 5-6
make some assumptions about SMBH formation and accretion efficiency on small…
catdynamics | August 7, 2013We are back to "Massive Black Holes"
Happy Birthday Alberto!
Alberto Sesana (AEI) leads off with "Probing massive black holes with space-based interferometry and pulsar timing"
starts with overview of gravitational radiation - characteristic frequencies, amplitudes, timescales
Baby Black Holes - up for adoption, get collectible adoption certificates with a picture of your very own baby black hole, or one much like it
- this is eLISA's plan for fundraising...
Ed - ok it is real it is an etsy thing and they are ***adorable***
quick pitch for eLISA/NGO
Ed: New improved eLISA web page - see…
catdynamics | August 6, 2013the Massive Black Holes workshop at KITP continues, with another Black Hole Pairs session
Mike Eracleous kicks off: Observational Searches for Close Supermassive Binary Black Holes
emission line signatures of close (~ sub-parsec) supermassive binary black holes
cf "A Large Systematic Search for Recoiling and Close Supermassive Binary Black Holes"
and "Emission Lines as a Tool in Search for Supermassive Black Hole Binaries and Recoiling Black Holes"
look for single line emitters, broad emission line displaced from narrow emission lines - displacement is ~ 1,000 km/sec
orbital periods of…
catdynamics | August 6, 2013"Massive black hole pairs" is the topic of today's session at the BHOLES13 workshop at KITP
Talks are online here - note that slides of talks show up later as speakers get their act together and send in slides
Monica Colpi (Milan) starts the session with Formantion of Binary Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei
starts off with good summary of "last parsec" problem and why it is a bit of a red herring
followed by discussion of role of gas at late stage of mergers and summary of sims
new trendy things to do is to look at star formation in situ in outer accretion disks - something must happen, but it…
catdynamics | August 5, 2013and we are back from lunch
J. Johnson (LANL) talking about supermassive stars as seeds for supermassive black holes - going to be getting more technical
supermassive star has a gas mass ~ 105 solar masses (as oppesed to few hundredish solar masses for standard Pop III stars that could provide low mass seeds)
form later than Pop III - maybe ~ 4-500 Myr after Big Bang
something like that may be needed for observed high luminosity quasars at redshift > 6.
radiative feedback, still not doing it right
but are we they doing it well enough...?
argues supermasive star formation common at z ~ 8-12…
catdynamics | August 5, 2013Visiting lovely KITP for the A Universe of Black Holes programme, and specifically the associated "Massive Black Holes: Birth, Growth and Impact" workshop.
As usual the talks will (eventually) be posted on line, both slides and web, but in the mean time I will be semi-transcribing my semi-coherent stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the issues.
And we are off, with new KITP Director Lars Bildsten welcoming the hordes.
As is typical, about half the attendees are noobs and have not visited KITP before.
Are they in for a treat.
Marta Volonteri (IAP), one of the workshop organizers, leads off…