Colloquium November 29

On November 29, 2012 the University of Michigan welcomed Andy Fabian to speak on Black holes and their environments.

 

Andy Fabian is a professor at the University of Cambridge. He has received many awards through out his career and he has taught around the world.

During his lecture Fabian focused primarily on the way we view black holes. He talked about how the amount of radiation (energy from matter around the black hole) depends on what surrounds the black hole.  He gave details about how we view the spectra of the released energy. He said that the radiation that is sent out by black holes is often in the X-ray band because it has such high energy. 

Fabian talked about how the energy of a black hole varies if it has a spinning accretion disk or a non spinning accretion disk.  He said that spinning accretion disks release 5 times more energy (radiation) than non spinning disks release.  He also said that some black hole shoot jets and these jets can go out as far as 5 Mpcs.