• Why Tidal Disruptions are interesting

    Black holes Sometimes people ask if black holes work like a vacuum cleaner, which can empty the whole universe, starting with the surrounding stars. We know that it is not true: the gravitation works roughly in the same way for solar-mass black hole and the Sun (talking about the space above solar radius from the black hole). The black hole radius is defined as Schwarzschild radius, linearly proportional to the mass of the black hole. Beyond the sphere of this radius nothing can escape from the black hole, even light. We have the whole range of black holes (BHs), depending on its mass. It is highly unlikely for solar-mass black…

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  • Big subsidy for the group!!

    I was thrilled to find out last week (around the time of the big Gravitational Wave detection!!) that I was awarded a Vici grant from the Dutch National Research Organization (NWO), basically 1.5 million Euros to hire 3 PhD students and 2 postdocs over the coming 5 years! The title of my proposal was ““From micro- to megascales: understanding how black holes shape the local universe”, and focuses on how black holes release energy from stuff they gravitationally capture, and dump it back into their surroundings. There’s a nice description on the press release from our science faculty here. So anyway we had our annual PhD recruiting last week and…

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