Events

Understanding the Near-Horizon with GPU Simulations

With an increasing body of event-horizon imaging and other black hole observations, there is a wealth of constraint information to apply in improving our understanding of accretion flows and jets. Simulations provide holistic models which can connect all observations of a source, making them a unique laboratory from which to connect the dots and form a consistent picture of the near-horizon.I will discuss some of the productive comparisons made using existing simulations, as well as recent improvements to simulation accessibility, effectiveness, and scalability, which may provide key improvements to our understanding of black hole accretion going forward.

Monday, September 21, 2026 11:00 AM

Inperson
G10

Virtual
Zoom

The Icon of the Black Hole: Aesthetics and Evidence for Existence

Focusing on aesthetics in the context of visual observation, I argue that the first image of the shadow of a black hole from observation has not only become an icon; it has come to represent black holes more broadly, including in fields that have nothing to do with observation; and it has also come to influence the iconography of black holes beyond images based on observations. While tracing some of the many roles aesthetics have played in the history of black hole imaging, I also describe the development of views about evidence for the existence of black holes from the late 1990s to the present, and how similar views reemerged after the releases of Event Horizon Telescope results in 2019 and in 2022. I then show how aesthetics and views of evidence became entangled in parts of the reception of the results. The reception also grew far beyond questions of evidence, sometimes focused mainly on views of aesthetic appeal, often portrayed through humour tied to new forms of the image. Finally, I discuss this history in light of recent philosophical work on evidence for the existence of black holes.

Monday, September 21, 2026 9:30 AM

Inperson
BHI Conference Room

Virtual
Zoom

Violation of the Third Law of Black Hole Mechanics in Vacuum Gravity

We demonstrate numerically the existence of solutions of five-dimensional vacuum gravity describing the
formation, in finite time, of an extremal rotating black hole from a pre-existing Schwarzschild black hole.
This is the first example of a violation of the third law of black hole mechanics in vacuum gravity and
demonstrates that the third law is false independently of any matter model. We also demonstrate the
existence of solutions describing the formation, in finite time, of an extremal rotating black hole from
vacuum initial data that does not contain a black hole.

Monday, September 28, 2026 11:00 AM

Inperson
BHI Conference Room

Virtual
Zoom

Is Black Hole Evaporation Prediction Friendly?

Manchak and Weatherall (2018) articulate a precise formulation of the black hole information paradox based upon the failure of predictability in black hole evaporation spacetimes. This failure is a consequence of the breakdown of global hyperbolicity. In this talk I offer a strategy for resolving this paradox. I first argue that failures of predictability in black hole evaporation are not well diagnosed by failures of global hyperbolicity, because describing black hole evaporation requires Planck-scale physics beyond the domain of applicability of general relativity. I then introduce novel spacetime properties: prediction and retrodiction friendliness, which plausibly diagnose failures of predictability which will not be fixed by a future theory of Planck-scale physics. I thus consider a formulation of the information paradox based on failures of retrodiction friendliness. However, deidealized models of black hole evaporation can be retrodiction friendly, and the viability of these retrodiction friendly spacetimes depends upon open questions in quantum gravity of which we are ignorant. It follows that there is no guarantee that black hole evaporation spacetimes are prediction or retrodiction unfriendly. Hence, the grounds for a paradox based upon failures of predictability, due to either non-global hyperbolicity or retrodiction unfriendliness, are dubious.

Monday, September 28, 2026 9:30 AM

Inperson
BHI Conference Room

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, October 5, 2026 11:00 AM

Inperson
G10

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, October 12, 2026

Modeling emission from super-Eddington supermassive black holes

Tidal disruption events (TDEs) light up hidden supermassive black holes and encode information about the
properties of both these black holes and their environments. They also regularly produce super-Eddington
mass return rates, providing a local test of extreme black hole growth. The light curves and spectra of TDEs
show signatures of these super-Eddington feeding rates, including evidence of large outflows, very high
electron densities, and strongly ionizing but obscured emission. Many of these signatures are also seen in
other candidates for super-eddington accretion, including luminous fast blue optical transients, ambiguous
nuclear transients, and little red dots. However, properties of the system such as the origin, mass/energy
budget and black hole mass are often better understood in TDEs. I’ll discuss how we can use theoretical
models to connect the observed light curves and spectra to the actual source emission as well as to the
properties of the gas surrounding the black hole in these transients. More broadly I’ll discuss how we can
combine theoretical models with observations to investigate the black hole mass function, probe emission
from forming and evolving accretion disks, and study the properties of stars on size scales we cannot
observe outside our own galactic nuclei.

Monday, October 19, 2026 11:00 AM

Inperson
G10

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, October 19, 2026 9:30 AM

Inperson
BHI Conference Room

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, October 26, 2026 11:00 AM

Inperson
G10

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, October 26, 2026 9:30 AM

Inperson
BHI Conference Room

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, November 2, 2026 11:00 AM

Inperson
G10

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, November 2, 2026 11:00 AM

Inperson
G10

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, November 16, 2026 9:30 AM

Inperson
BHI Conference Room

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, November 23, 2026 – Monday, November 30, 2026

Monday, December 7, 2026 11:00 AM

Inperson
G10

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, December 14, 2026 11:00 AM

Inperson
G10

Virtual
Zoom

Monday, December 21, 2026 – Monday, January 18, 2027