Unravelling the Physics of Black Holes Using Astronomical Time Series: From Seconds to Decades

Oregon Convention Center 

Black holes are at the heart of many open questions in astrophysics. They are prime laboratories to study the effects of strong gravity, and are thought to play a significant role in the evolution of the universe. Significant knowledge of these sources comes from studies of X-ray binaries, where a black hole exists in a binary system with a star. Of particular interest are time series of their brightness as a function of time, usually in X-rays. These time series show complex variations on timescales from sub-seconds to decades. Connecting properties of these (often stochastic) time series to physical models of how matter falls into black holes enables probes of fundamental physics, but requires sophisticated methods. In this talk, I will introduce black holes as important astrophysical sources and give an overview of the types of data we observe from them with X-ray telescopes. I will give an overview of current statistical and machine learning methods for characterizing the information of the physical system contained in these data sets, and present both the state-of-the-art and future directions of time series analysis for black holes.