Speaker
Description
After over a century since their initial mathematical description, black holes and their surroundings remain poorly understood. In April 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope released the first image of a black hole, bringing the nature of physics at horizon scales into focus. This talk will detail how additional telescopes will enhance fainter features of black holes, their surrounding environment, and sharpen our understanding of gravitational physics near the event horizon. Adding additional ground telescopes will allow the next-generation Event Horizon Telescope to see closer to the horizon, measure its properties, and create black hole cinema. These movies will enable direct studies of the dynamics of accretion and the conditions of jets near the horizon. Furthermore, the addition of a space telescope will further focus on the role of gravity, creating the highest-resolution images ever produced and enabling new tests of general relativity.
