Measuring Black Hole Spin

by Prof. Ramesh Narayan (Harvard)

Thursday 5 Jun 2008, 15:15 → 16:15 Europe/Stockholm

Klein Auditorium

An astrophysical black hole is completely described with just two parameters: its mass and its dimensionless spin. A few dozen black holes have mass estimates, but until recently none had a reliable spin estimate. The first spins have now been measured for black holes in X-ray binaries. The talk will summarize the current status of the field and will discuss prospects for the future.

Streaming video