George Wong, Institute for Advanced Study

University of Arizona, Theoretical Astrophysics Program (TAP) Computation & Data Lectureship Series
TITLE:
The Next Generation of Horizon-Scale Black Hole Accretion Science
ABSTRACT:
The last decade has seen a rapid increase in opportunities for event-horizon-scale black hole
science, with interferometric observatories producing exquisite high resolution, high cadence
images and astrometry. These new data provide an unparalleled opportunity to directly investigate jet-launching, trans-relativistic plasma, and the details of how fluids and light behave
in the vicinity of a black hole. In this talk, I will describe the state-of-the-art in modeling
supermassive black hole accretion systems and discuss how uncertainties in the thermodynamics
and plasma kinetics can influence the results. I will then describe how analytic results can be
combined with numerical simulations to identify novel observables that directly probe spacetime
geometry in spite of the messy gastrophysics. I will conclude with my take on the future of the
theory and observation of horizon-scale black hole science.
BIO:
George Wong is a theoretical and computational astrophysicist primarily studying supermassive
black hole environments in the context of accretion, radiative transfer, photon rings, and jet
launching. He develops general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic and polarized radiative
transfer codes, which are used to simulate the magnetized accretion disk and jet and predict
spectra and polarimetric images of those sources. He is a member of the Event Horizon
Telescope collaboration, where he co-leads the Theory Working Group, and is active in the
design of next generation ground-and space-based near-horizon radio interferometry
experiments. George is the Frank and Peggy Taplin Member at the Institute for Advanced Study
and holds a joint position as an Associate Research Scholar in the Gravity Initiative at Princeton
University. He received his Ph.D. in 2021 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.