Constraining accretion and relativistic jet physics with multi-wavelength observations of accreting compact objects

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

White dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes are some of the most extreme objects in the Universe. In these dense objects, a mass similar to that of the Sun can be concentrated in objects the size of the Earth (white dwarfs), the size of a city (neutron stars), or an infinitesimal point (black holes). Despite their exotic nature, these compact objects are also home to processes that appears repeatedly in the Universe over a variety of scales, accretion discs and collimated outflows of jets. Accretion discs are structures around central objects where material flows onto the central object. In some cases, material may manage to flow out, presumably perpendicular to the disc, in jets. This combination of processes is seen across a wide variety of astronomical objects: the discs from which planets form accrete onto young stars and can produce jets; material from the outer envelopes of stars orbiting around white dwarfs, neutron stars, and stellar-mass black holes accrete onto the compact objects and jets of material flowing near the speed of light (relativistic jets) can form; and material at the center of galaxies can accrete onto supermassive black holes, also producing relativistic jets. Despite the universal nature of accretion physics and jet formation, there are many open questions. Relativistic jets are also extremely important as they can significantly impact their environment. Astronomers currently believe that the relativistic jets from supermassive black holes may play an important role in how galaxies form. My research program focuses on performing observations of accreting stellar-mass compact objects using facilities stretching across the electromagnetic spectrum to better understand the coupling of accretion and jet physics. Observations focused on accreting stellar-mass compact objects in the Milky Way reveal this connection in detail, while observations of other galaxies reveal the properties of the brightest accreting stellar-mass compact objects. Using multi-wavelength catalogs of accreting supermassive black holes, my program will also test whether they are always associated with relativistic jets at some phase in their evolution.