Colloq Abstract - Tetarenko

July 29, 2022

11:00am Mountain

Alexandra Tetarenko (TTU)

Towards micro-arcsecond imaging in stellar-mass black holes

 

Abstract

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is a powerful diagnostic tool that can be used to study black holes. Today's state of the art global mm-VLBI arrays are able to achieve tens of micro-arcsecond resolution, enabling imaging down to event horizon scales in some super-massive black hole sources. While stellar-mass black holes within our own Galaxy are located much closer than these extra-galactic sources, their black holes are millions to billions of times smaller in mass, thus direct imaging on horizon scales is not feasible. However, global mm-VLBI arrays could allow us to directly resolve their extended jets and open the door to extracting new physics (e.g., size scale of the emitting region, velocity of the jet flow, the alignment of the jet axis, morphology, energetics, and particle acceleration). In this talk, I will discuss how we are beginning to build the foundation needed to overcome both the observational and analysis challenges that accompany mm-VLBI studies of stellar-mass black hole systems. In particular, I will highlight what we can do with the current VLBI architecture, as well as detail the crucial role that next generation instruments and algorithmic development play in these efforts.

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