Events on Thursday, December 7th, 2017
- Astronomy Colloquium
- Black Holes in Globular Clusters
- Time: 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: 4421 Sterling Hall, Coffee and cookies 3:30 pm, Talk begins at 3:45 pm
- Speaker: Laura Chomiuk, Michigan State University
- Abstract: Hundreds of stellar-mass black holes are expected to form in
the early lifetime of a typical globular star cluster, but the fate of these black holes remains uncertain. Are they promptly ejected from their parent clusters, or are some retained to form close binaries? The existence of black holes in globular clusters would have broad implications for the demography of black holes, the evolution of globular clusters, and gravitational wave sources. I will discuss the initial results and implications of our survey using deep radio continuum and X-ray data to search for stellar and intermediate-mass black holes in Milky Way globular clusters. I will also discuss prospects for future black-hole hunting with the next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA).
- Host: Professor Eric Wilcots