Atul Chhotray

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Jets are funnel shaped ultra-fast (they almost travel as fast as light) ejections of matter. It is natural to ask how black holes, which don't even allow light to escape, are somehow failing to not just trap matter but somehow propelling it to speeds almost as fast as light! This is the question that my work in Amsterdam focused upon. I investigated how strong gravity (General Relativity or GR) guides the interaction between matter/plasma and magnetic fields (Magnetohydrodynamics), in short GRMHD. Employing GRMHD, I developed a semi-analytical model to describe how jets can be launched from the vicinity of black holes.

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Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs for short) are one of the most powerful explosions in the universe. Mankind now regularly detects them in space as extremely energetic bursts of gamma rays. These explosions are believed to be associated with the formation of a dense, compact object and with the ejection of matter at extremely fast speeds. The ejected stuff is called an outflow (or a jet) as it flows outward from the compact object.

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AGNs are extremely luminous core of galaxies, believed to harbor a super-massive black hole (imagine a black hole having the same mass as millions of our suns!) at their center. Many of these giant black holes have been seen spewing copious amounts of matter outwards (just like an outflow), also, at really fast speeds.  

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My PhD research explored how light (or to be specific, electromagnetic radiation) can accelerate outflows to extremely high speeds. It involved a lot of theoretical work, coding, and simulations - it was hard but really fun! 

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