Topic: Black holes

Zack Gelles examines how black-hole rotation twists magnetic fields near light cylinders, where plasma accelerates into inflows and outflows. Semi-analytic models and simulations connect this structure to polarization changes detectable with radio interferometry, offering constraints on black-hole spin and relativistic jets. Kritti Sharma presents fast radio bursts as probes of cosmic baryons. Dispersion measures and secure host redshifts constrain gas in galaxy groups and clusters, while correlations with large-scale structure and other tracers map matter along burst sight-lines. The talk con

Quasinormal-mode frequencies characterize black-hole spacetimes and can be measured with gravitational waves, but small perturbations to the gravitational potential can substantially change the spectrum. This seminar studies that spectral instability in a time-domain waveform model. A frequency shift appears only after a delay set by the echo time between the perturbation and the primary potential. In the perturbative limit, the post-echo shift agrees with the usual frequency-domain result; outside that limit, the intermediate-time signal cannot be represented by a constant frequency shift.

Three-year research positions allowing early-career astrophysicists to develop an independent programme while collaborating with MPA researchers. Areas include stars and stellar systems, supernovae, gravitational waves, galaxy formation, black holes and cosmology. Fellows have access to computing facilities and support for scientific travel. Gross annual salary is stated as approximately EUR 67,500–77,700 depending on experience, with public-service benefits. Apply by 15 November 2026 with a CV, publication list, research statement and three referees; reference letters are due on the same date

Vitor Cardoso discusses how observations and theory are changing black-hole physics. The conversation covers Hawking radiation, general relativity, gravitational-wave observations and the Event Horizon Telescope, asking what these measurements reveal about black holes and what future observatories could test.

This Nature Podcast episode reports on a high-speed star whose orbit could enable measurement of the spin of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. The programme also examines how exoskeletons influence human movement and covers other current science stories.