Assistant Research Scientist of Astronomy
About
PhD, University College Cork/Ireland | Key Collaborator: Jon Miller
Accretion physics
Mark Reynolds studies the accretion of matter onto black holes and neutron stars and the resulting energy outflows. He focuses on stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way, using X-ray and UV data to study the hot inner accretion disk and its coupling to the compact object. He’s particularly interested in the evolution of outflows as a function of the accretion rate and is exploring questions such as: Is accretion occurring through a thin or thick disk? What determines this? How do changes in the disk structure influence the generation of jets and winds? How much mass actually accretes onto the compact object? The stellar-mass systems he studies can be treated as analogues to the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies and can be used to explore their influence on the formation and evolution of galaxies. These systems also provide a means to study General Relativity in the strong field limit and to better understand the state of ultra-dense matter.
Related Interests
Extragalactic X-ray binaries, supermassive black holes, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, population studies.
Publications
For articles that include this author, use this ADS search.
