We are thrilled to have Professor Lin (University of California, Santa Cruz) deliver a keynote lecture on stellar evolution and black holes.

Join us at Strand campus for a special guest lecture From Professor Douglas Lin on stellar evolution and black holes, followed by an opportunity to discuss astronomy and astrophysics with Professor Lin and King's own experts.

Agenda

16:25 - Welcome and opening remarks

16:30 - Lecture by Professor Douglas Lin

17:30 - Discussion

18:00 - Event close

Stellar evolution, mergers of stellar mass black holes, and the growth of supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei

Active galactic nuclei are mostly powered by inflow through accretion disks onto central supermassive black holes. Beyond a few times their Schwarzschild radius, gravitational instability in these disks leads to self-regulated formation and evolution of massive stars which chemically enrich their neighbourhood along with stellar-mass black holes. These compact remnants are captured by coexisting massive main sequence stars, form close binaries, readily merge, and excite intense gravitational waves with potentially observable electromagnetic signatures.

The massive stars' migration, with or without black hole cores, efficiently transporting mass regardless of the Eddington limit and promoting the rapid growth of supermassive black holes in the early Universe. Analogous physical processes are also relevant in the context of planet formation in protostellar disks. They account for the persistent super-solar metallicity, especially in Nitrogen and iron, inferred from broad emission lines of high and low redshift AGNs.

Speaker: Professor Douglas Lin

Professor Douglas Lin is Emeritus Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California and is Founding Director of the Kavli Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at Peking University. He holds a PhD in Astrophysics from Cambridge University and is a Royal Astronomical Society Honorary Fellow.

Having published over 300 papers, Professor Lin’s research interests include Planet formation, internal structure, and long term evolution; solar system dynamics; interstellar asteroids, star formation and interstellar medium; astrophysical hydrodynamics and stellar dynamics; theory of accretion disks; interacting binary stars; magnetosphere-accretion disk interaction, formation and dynamical evolution of stellar clusters; interacting galaxies; active galactic nuclei and black holes; intergalactic medium; gravitational waves.

 

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