Lars Thomsen,<br>PhD Astrophysics

Lars Thomsen,
PhD Astrophysics

I am a researcher at The University of Hong Kong.

Theory

Introduction to black holes and X-ray reverberation

Black holes are some of the most interesting astrophysical objects to study since they can be used to test our theories under the most extreme conditions. Such as two black holes colliding producing gravitational waves, how light and particles move in curved space-time, gravitational lenses and tidal disruption events. In this section, I will introduce black holes, how we can observe black holes, how black holes grow, and lastly how we can use X-ray reverberation as a link between theory/simulations and observation.
Please click here for a brief video introduction to X-ray reverberation

Introduction to Tidal Disruption Events

Only around 10% of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are actively accreting gas and thereby visible to us by the radiation of extremely hot gas (see Black Holes and X-ray Reverberation). This means the majority of SMBHs lie dormant in their galaxy centre. Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are some of the coolest ways to detect these otherwise dormant and non-detectable SMBHs and test if they are similar to their active and visible counterpart.

Introduction to Radiative Transfers

The information we can extract from observations of astrophysical systems relies heavily on our understanding of electromagnetic radiation. To interpret these observations, we must model the production and transport of radiation. Therefore, radiative transfer is a fundamental process in astrophysics that describes how electromagnetic radiation propagates through and interacts with matter