Extreme variability in quasars

类星体的极端变化

• 批准号: 2144713
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2144713
• 关键词: Extreme; variability; quasars

I am studying extreme variability in quasars. Quasars are the most luminous objects in the universe, and in some cases their brightness can vary by an order of magnitude on timescales of months. There are a number of mechanisms that could cause this activity and I am focusing on one such mechanism - tidal disruption events (TDEs). This is when a star gets ripped apart by the tidal forces of the supermassive black hole that powers the quasar, temporarily causing a huge increase in mass falling onto the black hole. This leads to a flare up which we can observe. Studying these extreme events provides a unique testbed for physics in the region close to the central black hole and for accretion physics in general, which, though poorly understood, is relevant to a number of astrophysical phenomena.

我在研究类星体的极端变化。类星体是宇宙中最明亮的物体，在某些情况下，它们的亮度可以在数月的时间尺度上变化一个数量级。有许多机制可能导致这种活动，我专注于这样一个机制-潮汐破坏事件（TDEs）。这是当一颗星星被为类星体提供动力的超大质量黑洞的潮汐力撕裂时，暂时导致质量的巨大增加落在黑洞上。这导致了我们可以观察到的爆发。研究这些极端事件提供了一个独特的实验平台，用于研究靠近中心黑洞的区域的物理学和一般的吸积物理学，尽管人们对吸积物理学知之甚少，但它与许多天体物理现象有关。