Accretion is the Universe's powerhouse: over the lifetime of the Universe most electromagnetic radiation has been produced by the accretion of gas onto supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. These so-called Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) host a range of physics phenomena that are not only important for understanding the physics in the direct environment of these black holes, but also, e.g. through the generation of supersonic jets, on the structure and evolution of the galaxies surrounding these active nuclei.  After a general introduction to accretion and the evidence for the existence of various types of black holes, we discuss relativistic jets, synchrotron radiation, shock acceleration, black hole basics, standard accretion discs, advection-dominated accretion flows and tidal disruption events. We will often compare the supermassive black hole accretion and jet phenomena with their small scale analogs found in our milky way, stellar-mass black holes accreting gas from stars.

Instructional Modes
Lectures, Tutorials, Student presentation of a research paper