Vladimír Karas
email:
web: http://astro.cas.cz/karas/
phone: +420-226 258 420
Vladimír Karas is Research Scientist at the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences, which he joined in 2004. He has since then taken charge of Relativistic Astrophysics program. Before coming to the Prague section of the Institute, Vladimír held a position of associate professor of astrophysics at Charles University. He was a visiting scientist in Trieste, Rome, Paris, Gőteborg, and Baltimore.
Vladimír's research includes several topics from relativistic astrophysics. He has developed several fast numerical approaches to study strong gravity effects via light variations from spots orbiting near a black hole. Vladimír is also interested in motion of stars embedded in a dense nuclear cluster. In particular, he studies interaction between stars and their environment in the immediate vicinity of galactic nuclei. Recently, these two main lines of research took quite a surprising twist as they have merged with each other in the investigations of Sagittarius A* flares. We describe them as disturbances – hot spots or spiral waves – near a massive black hole, where they interact with fast-moving stars in a deep potential well.