VIRTUAL

 Thursday, June 9th    2022

3:45 – 4:45 pm (MT)

WEBEX 

 Speaker:  Prof. Phil Armitage

Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University

Group Leader, Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute

 

 

"Progress and challenges in computational modeling of astrophysical accretion"

Abstract: 

The growth of massive black holes and the formation of planetary systems take place in wildly different astrophysical environments, but our understanding of both processes rests on a shared physics problem - how does gas orbiting a central gravitating object lose angular momentum and accrete? Recent years have seen both dramatic observational advances, including the recent imaging of the black holes in our Galaxy and M87, and ongoing theoretical  progress. Current computational capabilities allow us to model a substantial subset of the physical processes thought to underlie astrophysical accretion, across limited but (hopefully!) informative ranges of spatial and temporal scales. In this talk I will attempt to illustrate, with examples from ongoing research, where the frontier in modeling astrophysical accretion flows stands, and discuss future prospects and possible points of confrontation against observations.

 

Bio:

Phil Armitage is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University, and a group leader at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics in Manhattan. His research interests are in theoretical and computational studies of astrophysical accretion phenomena and planet formation. Current work focuses on understanding the role of magnetic fields in accretion disks, on simulations of multi-fluid turbulence in planet formation, and on the development of Machine Learning approaches in these fields.