3.0

Average Course Rating

Black holes are the central engines for a wide variety of astrophysical objects: Galactic X-ray sources, active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts, stellar tidal disruptions, and black hole mergers. Although the mass distribution of astrophysical black holes spans ten orders of magnitude and their circumstances can vary tremendously, the physical processes relevant to them are often closely related. The class will begin with an overview of astrophysical black hole phenomenology and then review the most important physical mechanisms responsible for their observed properties: relativistic orbits for both matter and photons; accretion dynamics and radiation; relativistic jet launching, propagation, and radiation; binary black hole dynamics and gravitational wave emission; and lastly, black hole creation.