Black holes and accretion astrophysics

Kayhan Gultekin is interested in the accretion physics, evolution, and feedback from black holes across the mass scale, from stellar-mass to supermassive. His research addresses questions such as: What is the relative population of black holes by mass and location? How do black holes and galaxies affect each other’s formation, growth, and evolution? Are the smallest galaxies and black holes governed by the same processes as larger ones? If not (as current data imply), what differing physical processes are at play? And to what extent are accretion and outflow relationships similar across the mass scales? Gultekin’s work is both theoretical and multi-wavelength observational, with data from HST, Chandra, EVLA, Gemini, and Magellan.