Evidence for Black Holes

• X-ray binaries: Cygnus X-1
• Milky Way center:
  • Radio overview
  • The power of adaptive optics
  • Stellar orbits: Munich group, UCLA group
  • possibly related: gamma-ray bubbles
  • coming soon(?): Event Horizon Telescope image of a black hole, perhaps like this
• other galaxies
  • active galaxies: M87; AGN gallery
  • gravitationally lensed quasar: the Einstein cross
  • quasar and host galaxies
  • supermassive black holes
  • black holes and galaxies somehow know about each other
  • important clues: a binary supermassive black hole pairs and even triples! optical detection by our own Prof. Xin Liu, X-ray

Imaging a Black Hole: M87^*

• Virgo cluster of galaxies
• M87 at center
• M87 jet: our closest AGN!
• Event Horizon Telescope: array
• expectations: black hole ray tracing, simulations
• EHT image of M87^*! paper: EHT Collaboration (2019)
• putting it all together

Binary Stars and Stellar Explosions

Binary Star Evolution

Type Ia Supernova Physics

• white dwarf accretion
• thermonuclear explosion
• nucleosynthesis: iron peak
• models U Chicago 3-D simulation
• population studies: everbody makes a Type Ia!

Type Ia Supernova: Open Questions

• who is the progenitor? single- vs double-degenerate
• detonation--deflagration transition?
• origin of lightcurve universality, diversity?
• environmental/evolutionary effects on lightcurve standardization?
• future Type Ia proble: LISA