Author: Eric Coughlin

I’m looking to hire a postdoc! If you have a PhD, or are expecting to finish your PhD by Spring 2025, and you want to work on theoretical and high-energy astrophysics, consider applying: https://www.sujobopps.com/postings/106641. The deadline for priority consideration is November 30th, but the position will remain open until filled.

With Kate Alexander, Suvi Gezari, and Chris Nixon, we are organizing a conference and program on tidal disruption events, to take place at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at Santa Barbara in April/May 2024. You can apply to the program and find out additional information here, and you can apply to the conference — to take place the first week of the program — and find out additional information here. We hope to see you there!

Matt Cufari, a Syracuse University undergraduate and physics major, just had a paper accepted to the Astrophysical Journal, Letters, here. In this paper we explores the possibility that periodic nuclear transients originate from partially disrupted stars that are populated by a three-body process known as Hills capture. Congrats Matt!

We recently had a couple of papers — this one led by Sarah Norman, a masters student at Leicester University in the UK, and this one — that explore the regime of “deep tidal disruption events,” where a star comes extremely close to a supermassive black hole (well within the distance where it is destroyed by tides). For these close encounters, the star is highly compressed by the vertical component of the tidal force of the black hole, which is an extreme version of the same force that produces the low tides on the Earth. You can also check out the movie on the Movies page. Comments welcome!

Katie Gabriel, a professional artist and educator at Fayetteville-Manlius high school, is hosting an expo of her artwork at Onandaga Community College. See the advertisement below!

Matt Cufari, an undergraduate physics major at Syracuse University, recently published a paper in the Astrophysical Journal that describes results related to eccentric tidal disruption events; check it out here. Congrats Matt!

We (with Patrick Miles and Chris Nixon) put out a paper that describes the various outcomes of tidal disruption events; check it out here and also the Movies page.

Suman Kumar Kundu, a graduate student in the physics department at Syracuse University, recently published his paper on the stability of planetary envelopes. Congrats Suman! Check it out here.

Patrick Miles, a graduate student in the physics department, published this paper, in which he describes the results of some very cool simulations of partial tidal disruption events. Congrats, Patrick!