Colloquium – Angelo Ricarte

Angelo Ricarte, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Weaving the Multi-messenger Tapestry of Supermassive Black Hole Evolution — from the Event Horizon to Cosmological Scales

The past decade has featured major advances in supermassive black hole (SMBH) astrophysics: from the first evidence of the gravitational wave background, to our first glimpses into the seeding epoch, to the first spatially resolved images. These observations, in tandem with theoretical advances on both event horizon and galactic scales, have spurred progress on longstanding problems in SMBH seeding, accretion, feedback, and dynamics. On event horizon scales, I will discuss imaging with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), how I use these images to infer strong magnetic fields that transform the dynamics of the accretion flow, and how the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) will enable new demographic studies of SMBHs in a variety of environments and accretion states. On cosmological scales, I will then introduce Serotina, a flexible semi-analytic model for SMBH-galaxy co-evolution on cosmological timescales. I use Serotina to self-consistently predict multi-messenger observables including spin distributions, high-redshift luminosity functions, and gravitational wave events. Bridging disparate spatial and temporal scales, I will demonstrate how the strongly magnetized accretion disks implied by event horizon-scale studies yield testable predictions for SMBH feedback and new prescriptions for cosmological simulations. As new observatories like BHEX, LISA, and AXIS go online in the next decade, this multi-scale theoretical approach will enable us to construct a comprehensive picture of SMBH evolution over cosmic time.

Bio: Dr. Angelo Ricarte is an astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and an expert in supermassive black holes. On event horizon scales, he constrains accretion flow simulations with images by the Event Horizon Telescope, wherein he serves as theory working group coordinator. On cosmological scales, he uses cosmological simulations and semi-analytic models to make multi-messenger predictions for cutting-edge and future missions such as JWST, AXIS, LISA, and BHEX.

January 21, 2026 @ 1:00pm (CST) in Commons Center 237

Host: Steve Taylor