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Dr. Broderick works to explain the fundamental physics of black holes and their observable characteristics. Black holes are sites where strong gravity dominates everything, from the dynamics of orbiting material to the shape of spacetime itself. As a result, they are the engines that power some of the brightest objects in the universe. Broderick works on scales spanning from the horizon to the cosmos, tied together by the unique physical conditions near black hole horizons.

As a member of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, Broderick participates in the creation and interpretation of the first horizon-resolving images of astronomical black holes in the history of astronomy. Using large-scale computer simulations his group explores model images, looking for signatures of deviations from general relativity and the high-energy astrophysical processes responsible for the growth of black holes and the launching of outflows that extends their influence to intergalactic distances.

In addition, Broderick's group studies the cosmological impact of the gamma-ray emission of black holes. At energies a million times higher than a dentist's X ray, these gamma rays seed the voids between galaxy clusters with a population of ultrarelativistic electron-positron pairs. The subsequent evolution of the pairs is dictated by plasma physics in the extremely relativistic regime and the structure of a putative intergalactic magnetic field that fills the universe, shedding light on both. Broderick's group studies the ultimate fate of these pairs with cutting-edge numerical plasma simulations as well as the implications for cosmological magnetic fields.

• Astrophysics and Gravitation

• Imaging black holes

• The nature of black holes

• White dwarf - compact object binaries

• Gamma-ray bursts

• The dynamics of starless cores

• Polarized radiative transfer near black holes

• Strongly magnetized neutron stars

• Faraday rotation measures and astrophysical plasmas

• Astronomy

• 2004 PhD Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, U.S.A.

• 1999 BS Physics and Mathematics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York, U.S.A.

• 2007, Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Derek Bok Center, Harvard University

• 2011-2013 Scientific Reports, Editorial Board Member

• December 2009 Scientific American, Author

• À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ Centre for Astrophysics

• 2011 - current, Associate Faculty Member, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

• PHYS 263 - Classical Mechanics and Special Relativity
  • Taught in 2024
• PHYS 363 - Intermediate Classical Mechanics
  • Taught in 2020, 2022, 2025
• PHYS 375 - Stars
  • Taught in 2020, 2021, 2022

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Broderick, A.E., Loeb, A. Portrait of a Black Hole. Scientific American (December 2009) volume 301 pp. 42-49.

• Please see SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System for a complete list of Dr. Broderick's publications.