Speaker: Dr. Tomaso Belloni

Moderator: Prof. ZHANG Shuangnan

Time: 10 AM, February 20

Place: Room C305, IHEP Main Building

Abstract:  

Binary systems containing a black hole or a neutron star offer the best possibility to test prediction of General Relativity in the strong field regime. The plasma stripped from the non-degenerate companion star reaches the space time in the immediate vicinity of the compact object and releases strong X-ray emission. The spectral and variability properties of this emission contain the signatures of predicted effects such as the presence of an innermost stable orbit and black hole spin.

The speaker will discuss the current observational status with particular emphasis onto sub-second time variability, which constitutes the most direct measurement of the properties of the plasma accreting onto a collapsed star.

About the speaker:

Prof. Belloni was born in Milan, where he completed his studies, and is "Primo Ricercatore" at INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera since 1999. Previously, he was Marie Curie Fellow and researcher at the Univ. of Amsterdam (1994-1999) and fellow at MPE Garching (1988-1994). His research interests are on accretion onto compact objects of low- and high-mass (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes of stellar, intermediate and galactic mass), time series analysis of periodic and aperiodic signals, rapid variability from compact objects, accretion-ejection connection in accreting compact objects, observational evidence of effects of General Relativity in the strong-field regime and fundamental physics in astronomy. In 2012-2013 he was Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton.