Black Holes Across Mass Scales: Formation, Growth, and the Multi-Messenger Frontier

Organizers:

Suvi Gezari, University of Maryland
Andrea Ghez, University of California Los Angeles
Smadar Naoz, University of California Los Angeles
Fred Rasio, Northwestern University

The astrophysics of black holes is entering a golden age, with new observations and theoretical advances revealing their formation, growth, and impact across the mass spectrum—from stellar remnants in clusters to supermassive black holes in the early Universe. This workshop will explore the environments of black holes and the rich astrophysics they host, including stellar-mass black hole interactions, as well as the extreme environments around supermassive black holes that give rise to transients such as tidal disruption events, quasi-periodic eruptions, and extreme mass ratio inspirals. Our Galactic Center offers a unique laboratory for probing these processes, while recent discoveries of compact “Little Red Dots” in the distant Universe provide clues to the earliest stages of black hole growth. By bringing together experts in gravitational waves, stellar and gas dynamics, accretion physics, and multi-wavelength observations, the workshop will foster new connections and chart the path forward in understanding black holes as engines of cosmic evolution.