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

M87* One Year Later: Catching the Black Hole’s Turbulent Accretion Flow

Using observations from 2017 and 2018, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration has deepened our understanding of the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87 (M87*). If you read English or Dutch, I highly recommend checking out the official press release: M87* One Year Later: Catching the Black Hole’s Turbulent Accretion Flow, of het nieuws in de Nederlandse Onderzoekschool voor Astronomie (NOVA): Gas bij zwart gat M87 spiraliseert tegen draairichting in. I am proud to be quoted in the official press release, acknowledging the time and effort I devoted to that project. I performed statistical analyses to compare general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations with observations of M87*. My contribution was instrumental in identifying that the EHT data... 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

vacation
April 13, 2025 - April 28, 2025
CTAO consortium meeting
May 12, 2025 - May 16, 2025
Location: Garching
EGO STAC
May 26, 2025 - May 27, 2025
Blackholistic meeting
June 10, 2025 - June 13, 2025
Location: Aalto, near Helsinki