Research Seminars @ Illinois

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Tailored for undergraduate researchers, this calendar is a curated list of research seminars at the University of Illinois. Explore the diverse world of research and expand your knowledge through engaging sessions designed to inspire and enlighten.

To have your events added or removed from this calendar, please contact OUR at ugresearch@illinois.edu

Dangerous Dances near Supermassive Black Holes

Event Type: Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor: Department of Astronomy
Location: 134 Astronomy Building
Virtual
Date: Nov 19, 2024 3:45 - 4:45 pm
Speaker: Professor Wenbin Lu
Contact: Daniel Franco
E-Mail: danielf9@illinois.edu
Phone: 217-300-6769
Views: 61
Originating Calendar: Astronomy Colloquium Speaker Calendar; Stars near our own Galactic Center are going around a supermassive black hole with orbital periods as short as a decade. Recent observations unveiled a new class of mysterious sources showing periodic bursts of X-ray emission at the centers of some distant galaxies. Different sources show a wide range of recurrence times from a few hours to days. In this talk, I will argue that these X-ray bursts are produced by stars on extremely close orbits around supermassive black holes. In each orbit, the star interacts with the gas in an accretion disk. This causes the outer layers of the star to expand and then get stripped by the black hole's tidal forces. These stars dance for only 100 years before they are eaten up. A mechanism that efficiently brings stars to such close orbits will be discussed.

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