Philip Hopkins
California Institute of Technology, CA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
When gas falls into a black hole, it can produce the brightest and most powerful sources of radiation in the Universe. That energy can reshape the surroundings and change how stars and whole galaxies form.
- Fields
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics
- Topics
black holes
accretion disks
active galactic nuclei
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Develop new theoretical models of gas inflow onto supermassive black holes, in which strong magnetic fields dominate the accretion disk and change its behavior.
- Work out the theoretical properties of this new class of strongly magnetized accretion disks, linking gas on galaxy-wide scales to the inner disk around the black hole.
- Connect magnetically dominated disk models to observations of active galactic nuclei and the massive black hole population, to explain black hole growth and its feedback on galaxy formation.
More about the research
Active galactic nuclei (AGN), galaxy centers lit up by a growing supermassive black hole, are where this happens. Understanding how gas actually flows inward is key to understanding black hole growth and its effect on galaxies.
Why it matters
This is basic astrophysics. Models of strongly magnetized accretion disks could change how scientists explain supermassive black hole growth, the behavior of active galactic nuclei, and the way black hole energy affects star and galaxy formation. Better models could also help astronomers interpret observations of the massive black hole population.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Adi Foord
University of Maryland-Baltimore County, MD·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Determine how often supermassive black holes merge by using AI to identify galaxy mergers and dual active galactic nuclei (pairs of feeding black holes) in large imaging surveys, and relate these rates to gravitational wave observations.
Erin Hicks
University of Alaska Anchorage, AK·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Measure the distribution and motions of molecular, ionized, and coronal gas within the central 500 parsecs of 90 nearby active galactic nuclei, using adaptive-optics near-infrared integral-field spectroscopy from Keck/OSIRIS and VLT/SINFONI.
Kate Rowlands
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Map recent star-formation histories in nearby galaxies using full spectral fitting of KILOGAS data, and compare them with current interstellar gas to see how star formation depends on available gas.
The school
California Institute of Technology: 18 labs on PI Pages, $445M a year on research, 200 research doctorates a year.
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