Hey everyone! So, I did not physically attend the 243rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) held in New Orleans, Louisiana, from January 7th to 11th, 2024. However, my presence was still felt at the conference, thanks to my advisor, Sera Markoff, who presented two interactive posters on my behalf. Let me start by introducing my first poster presented at the conference. Check it out through the link: “High-resolution insights into black hole accretion dynamics and jet phenomena”. In this work, we perform a convergence study with the GPU-accelerated GRMHD (General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic) code H-AMR on a wider range of resolutions than has ever been previously explored. What made…

An exhibition about black holes will open next week at the Valkhof Museum in Nijmegen, where we can think about the mysteries surrounding these extreme gravity objects. Those astrophysical monsters have not only inspired scientists but also artists from all fields, especially in visual arts and music. A great example is the Black Hole Symphony where the music leads us to a sensory experience of how black holes behave. In understanding science, it is vitally important to have a graphic representation where for example we can visualize what happens to the plasma when it is near a black hole. The Event Horizon Telescope is a project that captured/photographed the shadow…

Few individuals have left as profound a mark on the world as J. Robert Oppenheimer, renowned for his pivotal role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. Yet, Oppenheimer’s contributions extend far beyond this infamous accomplishment. Last month, I watched the premiere of Oppenheimer in the cinema and was intrigued by a scene showcasing his major, yet lesser-known, contribution to science. In 1939, Oppenheimer collaborated with his student, George Volkoff, and published a groundbreaking paper titled “On Massive Neutron Cores” which laid the foundation for our understanding of neutron stars. The Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit establishes that if the mass of a neutron star is greater than a critical value of approximately 2 solar…

Black holes are some of the most fascinating objects in the universe, known for their immense gravity and mysterious nature. While they are famously known for their ability to swallow everything in their vicinity, including light, black holes can also emit powerful beams of energy called jets. Jets are narrow beams of plasma that shoot out from the proximity of black holes at relativistic speeds, meaning they are close to the speed of light. This week, Nature published a new observation of the supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy that captured the first image of the jet and the black hole shadow together. See the science…

Last year, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) presented the observations of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), located at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way. Their results confirm the presence of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy (see Fig. 1 or this interview). Such an astrophysical object is expected to be described by the Kerr spacetime, which is a solution of Einstein’s equation for a rotating black hole. Furthermore, they also investigated potential deviations from the Kerr prediction, such as the traversable Morris–Thorne wormhole! See my previous blogpost for more context about wormholes. The visual difference between simulations of the accretion flow from the two spacetime geometries is shown in…

In this blog, I will introduce the mathematical concept of wormholes in general relativity, the possible implications in serious astrophysical research, and how this became an inspiration for the german science fiction series: Dark. With mathematics, it is possible to duplicate the geometry of spacetime, for example, we can make a copy of the Schwarzschild geometry (describing a static Black Hole) in reverse. In this reversed version, the copy behaves as a White Hole where all objects are destined to escape from it, contrary to the case of a black hole. In Fig. 2, if we consider region I being the universe where we live, then by traveling to the…

Hi there! My name is León Sosapanta and will arrive at the University of Amsterdam in September this year to join Sera Markoff’s group as a Ph.D. student. My research will focus on theoretical modeling of black hole accretion, particularly using numerical/computational techniques in the code H-AMR, to better understand the physics implemented within these simulations of black holes, starting by including new processes that allow the separate treatment of hadrons and leptons, and the effects of hadron acceleration. This work will allow the same models used to interpret Event Horizon Telescope sources to also be compared with multi-wavelength and multi-messenger data including very-high-energy gamma-rays and neutrinos. All my college…