Dr. Mehlhaff studies how particles in the extreme astrophysical environments of black holes and neutron stars become accelerated and radiate across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Such particle acceleration occurs through plasma physical processes. These processes are often coupled – through the intense gravity and high energy densities near black holes and neutron stars – to general relativistic (GR) and quantum electrodynamical (QED) effects. To account for all the relevant physics, Dr. Mehlhaff uses state-of-the-art plasma (particle-in-cell) simulations. Dr. Mehlhaff exploits the wealth of data furnished by these simulations not only to draw conclusions about GR- and QED-coupled particle acceleration, but also to reconstruct synthetic observations. These he compares to real observations of systems such as blazars, active galactic nuclei, black hole X-ray binaries, and pulsars. In this way, he endeavors to firmly link frontier physics to exciting new data on black holes and neutron stars coming in from modern observatories.
Professional history:
| 2025 - present | Simons Collaboration on Extreme Electrodynamics of Compact Sources (SCEECS) Fellow; Washington University in St. Louis; St. Louis, MO, USA |
| 2021 - 2025 | Postdoctoral Researcher; Univ. Grenoble Alpes; Grenoble, France |
| 2016 - 2021 | PhD, Center for Integrated Plasma Studies; University of Colorado; Boulder, CO, USA |