Cosmos Seminar
Mar
5
2026
Mar
5
2026
Description
Practice job talk
Young Stars Near a Supermassive Black Hole as Laboratories for Extreme Gravity
At the center of the Milky Way lies a four-million-solar-mass black hole. Surprisingly, it is surrounded by a population of young stars. Forming stars so close to a black hole is extremely difficult, making their presence a long-standing puzzle. In this talk, I will show how interactions between binary stars and the central black hole naturally explain the origin and orbital properties of these young stars. Beyond their origin, these stars act as tracers of the gravitational environment near the black hole, allowing precision tests of general relativity. Moreover, their motions provide constraints on the otherwise invisible population of stellar-mass black holes and other compact remnants in the region.
Other Events in This Series
Jan
23
2025
Cosmos Seminar: Seeking to Uncover The Obliquities of Small Planets
Jack Lubin is a postdoctoral researcher in Astrophysics at the University of California, Los Angeles
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm • In Person
Speaker(s): Jack Lubin - UCLA
Mar
13
2025
Cosmos Seminar
Cosmos Seminar
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm • In Person
Speaker(s): William Roper - University of Sussex and Stephen Wilkins - University of Sussex