PHYS 4800-0

Brief

Studying black holes is an important subject in astrophysics, including the newly discovered gravitational waves, and the evolution of galaxies in the universe. This course aims to provide students who are interested in astrophysics with fundamental knowledge about black holes. The lectures will cover stellar-mass black holes and supermassive black holes and their related phenomena, with a balance between theories and observations. We will start from the black hole properties predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, to major advancements and discoveries in recent years. 黑洞在天文物理的許多熱門研究領域中都是重要的課題，包括新興的重力波觀測、以及星系的形成與演化等等，因此開設本課程，希望能讓對天 文物理有興趣的物理系學生有機會學習各種與黑洞相關的基礎知識。課程內容會涵蓋太陽質量黑洞和超大質量黑洞的性質與相關現象，並同時著 重理論和觀測，從廣義相對論所預測的黑洞性質出發，隨後介紹近幾十年來的重要觀測證據與發現。

Description

Course keywords: Black holes, astrophysics, active galactic nuclei, relativistic jets, gravitational waves, 黑洞, 天文物理, 活躍星系核, 噴射流, 重力波 Introduction to Black Hole Astrophysics -- Syllabus Studying black holes is an important subject in astrophysics, including the newly discovered gravitational waves, and the evolution of galaxies in the universe. This course aims to provide students who are interested in astrophysics with fundamental knowledge about black holes. The lectures will cover stellar-mass black holes and supermassive black holes and their related phenomena, with a balance between theories and observations. We will start from the black hole properties predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, to major advancements and discoveries in recent years. Because of the fast development of the field and frequent coverages by scientific media, in the latter 2/3 of the semester, students are expected to give short oral presentations on a selected black-hole related news. This allows the students to learn how to research an interested topic, summarize knowledge systematically, and express in a clear, structured way. In addition, students will write a research proposal as the final team report, which involves proposing a new idea based on what we learned in class. In the last class, we will also conduct a proposal review to let the peers to evaluate proposals from other teams. In addition to traditional lecturing, more interactive teaching such as group activities and discussions will also be incorporated. The design of this course aims to provide trainings of the soft skills that are useful not only for academia but also for industry. The references include: 1. Introduction to Black Hole Astrophysics, Gustavo E. Romero & Gabriela S. Vila, Springer (2014) 2. Introduction to Black Hole Physics, Valeri P. Frolov & Andrei Zelnikov, Oxford (2011) 3. Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe, Mitchell Begelman, Cambridge (2009) 4. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy, Kip S. Thorne, W. W. Norton & Company (1995) (The first two books have free online copies) The grades would be evaluated as follows: Homework (30%) Oral presentation (30%) Final team report (30%) Class participation (10%) Tentative schedule: Week 1: A brief history of black holes (BHs) Week 2: Einstein’s theory of special relativity Week 3: Einstein’s theory of general relativity Week 4: Schwarzschild BHs and Kerr BHs Week 5: Observational discovery of BHs Week 6: The birth of stellar mass BHs Week 7: BH accretion disks Week 8: Measuring BH masses and spins Week 9: Supermassive BHs (SMBHs) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) Week 10: The SMBH at our Galactic center Week 11: AGN Jets Week 12: AGN feedback on galaxies Week 13: SMBHs origin and growth Week 14: Recent triumphs of GR – the first image of BH Week 15: Recent triumphs of GR – gravitational waves Week 16: Other interesting topics: primordial BHs, Hawking radiation, information paradox. Project evaluation. Notes: (1) Lectures will be taught in English. If there are no English-speaking students, teaching in Mandarin can be considered. (2) Suggested pre-requisites: General Astronomy I & II

Timetable

Scores

Average Percentage 82.64

Std. Deviation 10.75

Remarks

建議先修課程：普通天文學一、二

Restrictions

Compulsory

Elective

Cross Discipline

First Specialization

Second Specialization