Black Hole Weather: Observing it, Predicting it, and Sharing it

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AST-0602259Rothstein, DavidDr. Rothstein is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at Cornell University. Dr. Rothstein will conduct a unique synthesis of theory and observation in order to answer the following question: How well can we predict the weather around a black hole? Recent observations of the accretion disks and jets surrounding stellar-mass black holes have yielded many details about the various states that these objects can be in, but comparatively little is known about what triggers the transitions between these states, or the weather. These transitions are the key to understanding the formation of jets around black holes and other astrophysical objects, and they are therefore of great interest. Dr. Rothstein will work with the U.S.-Russia Collaboration in Plasma Astrophysics at Cornell University to synthesize observational data on GRS 1915+105 and other black hole candidates, search it for patterns that can be used to predict the weather, and compare it directly to weather forecasts made from one- and two-dimensional simulations, in order to understand the evolution of the anomalous viscosity that drives accretion in these objects and its relationship to the formation of jets. The results of this synthesis will be placed on an interactive website that will be of interest to the research community and the public at large.Dr. Rothstein will also draw on his experience working with school districts in upstate New York to begin the development of an education website that allows teachers to share lesson plans with each other, and he will work with teachers on classroom projects in physics and astronomy that can be put on this website.