Professor of Theoretical High Energy Astrophysics
Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy/GRAPPA
University of Amsterdam
Science Park 904, rm. C4.151
1098 XH Amsterdam, Netherlands
T +31 20 525 7478/7491
s.b.markoff@uva.nl

I work at the interface of Astrophysics and Astroparticle Physics, and am interested in a variety of problems relating to the accretion process especially around black holes, both big and small.  I am a member of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, serving on its Science Council from 2016-2022 (Vice Chair from 2019), and now sit on its Science Board.  I also co-coordinate the Multi-Wavelength Science WG, and am a member of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Project.  I am currently co-PI of the ERC Synergy Grant “BlackHolistic” to better understand black holes of all scales, including building a new mm-radio dish in Namibia (the Africa Millimeter Telescope, or AMT) in partnership with the University of Namibia.  By augmenting the EHT array with the AMT we will be able to make the first movies of the event horizon region of a supermassive black hole, as well as use the AMT on its own to study transient black hole outbursts.


Group Blog

The relativistic Christmas candle 🕯️

With the advent of the Christmas time, it is common to put yourself a nice candle in the living room (or sometimes even four or more). It is particularly nice to enjoy the warm and dim orange light, softly flickering and creating a cozy atmosphere. As an astrophysicist researching the light emission from outflows moving at almost the speed of light towards us, I was wondering what would happen to such a Christmas candle if I would do the same thing to the candle – move it at the speed of light. Clearly, the airstream would blow out the candle and it wouldn’t burn if we put it into a vacuum, so let’s instead rather think of the candle... Continue reading →

Latest News

Bringing the band back together!

First, the new news

It’s the start of a new year so of course I made a bunch of resolutions that likely won’t stick, but one of them was to start doing more research blogging on our site, and to encourage my group to do better here too, after a longish hiatus. Why the hiatus? At least from my side I guess the fallout from the pandemic has been … Continue reading →

Where I Am / Will Be

Winter break
December 23, 2024 - January 12, 2025
Location: US
Winter leave
December 23, 2024 - January 12, 2025
Vacation
January 16, 2025 - January 20, 2025
CTAO consortium meeting
May 12, 2025 - May 16, 2025
Location: Garching