Itai Linial

Dynamics and energetic transients in galactic nuclei

Centers of galaxies host a variety of dynamical processes, owing to the high density of stars and the presence of a central Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH). Orbital relaxation brings stellar objects into close encounters with the SMBH, driving a plethora of energetic phenomena. These include tidal disruption events, stellar collisions, the formation of X-ray binaries, compact object mergers detectable by LIGO, and gravitational wave (GW) inspirals of stellar objects towards the SMBH. In this talk, I will review some of these processes and their observable signatures, with an emphasis on newly discovered classes of repeating flares associated with SMBHs. I will discuss theoretical models, key open questions, and how these phenomena inform our understanding of accretion physics, SMBH growth and evolution, and the connection to their host galaxies. A powerful array of current and upcoming time-domain surveys and instruments will uncover thousands of high-energy sources in galactic nuclei in the coming years. I will highlight how theoretical interpretation of these discoveries can address fundamental questions in astrophysics, and conclude with broader implications for multi-messenger observations in the era of space-based GW detectors such as LISA.

Itai Linial received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel in 2022, where he was an Adams Fellow. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the THEA group in Columbia University and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He received The Gruber Foundation postdoctoral prize (2022) and the Rothschild Fellowship (2022-2023).

Itai’s research spans a variety of topics in theoretical astrophysics, including high-energy astrophysical phenomena, dynamical processes in galactic nuclei and hydrodynamics.