Research

This page highlights one of the many fascinating processes that can occur to stars near a massive black hole. For the full list of the research topics which I am currently exploring, or worked on in the past, see the research topics page.

The animated results from an hydrodynamical simulation shown below describe the tidal detonation of a post-main sequence star passing deep in the tidal field of a massive black hole. The tidal deformation leads to a rapid increase in the core density that can trigger a runaway thermo-nuclear detonation (For a more detailed discussion of this process, see the review article Alexander 2005, Physics Reports, 419, 65, sec. 6.1.4).