picture of Chris

Chris White

Flatiron Research Fellow
Center for Computational Astrophysics
Flatiron Institute, Simons Foundation

chwhite@flatironinstitute.org

Research

I am a computational astrophysicist specializing in black hole accretion. I am interested in combining the effects of general relativity, magnetohydrodynamics, and radiative transfer in order to model accretion flows in a variety of systems.

A key tool for this is Athena++, a successor to the MHD code Athena. My role as an Athena++ developer is combining the strength of Athena's MHD with GR, enabling us to run simulations in arbitrary stationary spacetimes. I am also the author of the Blacklight ray-tracing and analysis tool.

Selected Publications

White et al., 2023, ApJ. An Extension of the Athena++ Code Framework for Radiation–magnetohydrodynamics in General Relativity Using a Finite-solid-angle Discretization (arXiv)

White, 2022, ApJ. Blacklight: A General-relativistic Ray-tracing and Analysis Tool (arXiv)

Murchikova, White, & Ressler, 2022, ApJ. Remarkable Correspondence of the Sagittarius A* Submillimeter Variability with a Stellar-wind-fed Accretion Flow Model (arXiv)

White & Quataert, 2022, ApJ. The Effects of Tilt on the Time Variability of Millimeter and Infrared Emission from Sagittarius A* (arXiv)

White, Burrows, Coleman, & Vartanyan, 2022, ApJ. On the Origin of Pulsar and Magnetar Magnetic Fields (arXiv)

White & Chrystal, 2020, MNRAS. The Effects of Resolution on Black Hole Accretion Simulations of Jets (arXiv)

White, Dexter, Blaes, & Quataert, 2020, ApJ. The Effects of Tilt on the Images of Black Hole Accretion Flows (arXiv)

White, Quataert, & Gammie, 2020, ApJ. The Structure of Radiatively Inefficient Black Hole Accretion Flows (arXiv)

White, Quataert, & Blaes, 2019, ApJ. Tilted Disks around Black Holes: A Numerical Parameter Survey for Spin and Inclination Angle (arXiv)

White, Stone, & Quataert, 2019, ApJ. A Resolution Study of Magnetically Arrested Disks (arXiv)

White, 2016, PhD thesis. Development and Application of Numerical Techniques for General-Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamics Simulations of Black Hole Accretion (arXiv)

White, Stone, & Gammie, 2016, ApJS. An Extension of the Athena++ Code Framework for GRMHD Based on Advanced Riemann Solvers and Staggered-Mesh Constrained Transport (arXiv)

White et al., 2015, ApJ. Slow-speed Supernovae from the Palomar Transient Factory: Two Channels (arXiv)

Stone, Tomida, White, & Felker, 2020, ApJS. The Athena++ Adaptive Mesh Refinement Framework: Design and Magnetohydrodynamic Solvers (arXiv)

Posters

GRMHD with Athena++ and its Application to MAD

Athena++: A New GRMHD Code for Black Hole Accretion

A Peculiar Class of Slow-Speed Supernovae from the Palomar Transient Factory

Additional Links

Curriculum vitae in PDF format.

Athena++.

Blacklight.

The Horizon Collaboration connecting Berkeley, Princeton, and UIUC.