The First Portrait of a Black Hole - Katie Bouman - 11/06/2020

In 2019, the first image of a black hole was published. This picture was the result of a global network of radio telescopes working together to study a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy. Come learn about this discovery and what it tells us about black holes and how gravity works from one of the key scientists on the team. Timestamps, links, and Q&A panel questions are included below.

Welcome & Announcements: 00:00
What's in the night sky tonight: 03:36
Introduction of Speaker: 07:30
Lecture: 08:59
Q&A Panel Start and Introductions: 42:04
Can we use space telescopes for interferometry? 45:34
Closing remarks: 2:03:30

Date: November 6, 2020
Lecturer: Katie Bouman
Title: The First Portrait of a Black Hole and Beyond
Abstract: This talk will present the methods and procedures used to produce the first image of a black hole from the Event Horizon Telescope, as well as discuss future developments for black hole imaging. It had been theorized for decades that a black hole would leave a "shadow" on a background of hot gas. Taking a picture of this black hole shadow would help to address a number of important scientific questions, both on the nature of black holes and the validity of general relativity. Unfortunately, due to its small size, traditional imaging approaches require an Earth-sized radio telescope. In this talk, I discuss techniques the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration has developed to photograph a black hole using the Event Horizon Telescope, a network of telescopes scattered across the globe. The talk will also discuss future developments, including how we are developing machine learning methods to help design future telescope arrays.

Participants:

Dr. Katie Bouman is a Rosenberg Scholar and an assistant professor in the Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Electrical Engineering, and Astronomy Departments at the California Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on computational imaging: designing systems that tightly integrate algorithm and sensor design, making it possible to observe phenomena previously difficult or impossible to measure with traditional approaches. This work led her to be a key member of the international Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, which in April 2019 imaged the first-ever a picture of the Messier 87 (M87) black hole fifty-five million light-years away. Dr. Bouman’s group at Caltech combines ideas from signal processing, computer vision, machine learning, and physics to find and exploit hidden signals for both scientific discovery and technological innovation. Dr. Bouman received her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, and completed her Master’s and PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is formerly a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.

Nitika Yadlapalli is a third-year graduate student in the radio astronomy group at Caltech. She currently works on commissioning a new telescope called SPRITE at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory. She is the president for Caltech’s Women in Physics, Math, and Astronomy group and when not doing research, she loves hiking, rock climbing, and making baked goods.

Dr. Jordan Moxon is a postdoctoral researcher in theoretical astrophysics at Caltech. He is a member of a team building a new software (called SpECTRE) to be run on supercomputers for simulating binary inspirals and collisions of black holes and neutron stars. Most of his effort is spent on the mathematics of general relativity, and computational techniques to make the code run efficiently. When not working on gravity research, he is fond of hiking, intricate boardgames, and tinkering with linux systems,

Dr. Cameron Hummels is a postdoctoral researcher in theoretical astrophysics at Caltech. He creates supercomputer simulations to study the formation and evolution of galaxies since the Big Bang. In addition to astrophysics and public education, he is really enthusiastic about trail-running, long-distance backpacking, brewing, chess, and the astronaut program. http://chummels.org

Night Sky Visualization Software: Stellarium -- https://stellarium.org/

Видео The First Portrait of a Black Hole - Katie Bouman - 11/06/2020 канала Caltech Astro