A nearby star is pummeling a companion planet with a barrage of X-rays a hundred thousand times more than the Earth receives from the Sun. Credit: NASA/CXC/NSF/IPAC/2MASS (see the 
MIT Kavli Institute Directory
Robert Penna
Pappalardo Postdoctoral Fellow Postdoctoral ScholarBob Penna completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University with advisor Ramesh Narayan. He studied math and physics at the University of Rochester and completed Part III maths at the University of Cambridge. He is from Eden, NY.
Bob is interested in general relativity, magnetohydrodynamics, and their astrophysical applications. He has studied the accretion of turbulent, magnetized gas onto spinning black holes, and investigated how the accretion flow's luminosity depends on black hole spin, gas temperature, magnetic field topology, and other variables. This work provides theoretical support for black hole spin measurements. He has also studied black hole jet formation. Currently, Bob is interested in using astrophysics to test new ideas about black holes and general relativity.
R.F. Penna, R. Narayan, A. Sadowski, "General relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of Blandford-Znajek Jets and the membrane paradigm," MNRAS submitted (2013). arXiv:1307.4752
R.F. Penna, A. Sadowski, A.K. Kulkarni, R. Narayan, "The Shakura-Sunyaev viscosity prescription with variable alpha(r)," MNRAS 428 3 2255 (2013). arXiv:1211.0526
R.F. Penna, A. Sadowski, J.C. McKinney, "Thin disk theory with a non-zero torque boundary condition and comparisons with simulations," MNRAS 420 1 684 (2012). arXiv:1110.6556
R.F. Penna, J.C. McKinney, R. Narayan, A. Tchekhovskoy, R. Shafee, J.E. McClintock, "Simulations of magnetized discs around black holes: effects of black hole spin, disc thickness and magnetic field geometry," MNRAS 408 2 752 (2010). arXiv:1003.0966
MIT Pappalardo Fellowship 2013
Eric Keto Prize (top theoretical astro. thesis), 2013
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2008-2011)
Churchill Scholarship (2007-2008)
Contact Information
t: 617-253-5084
e: rpenna@mit.edu
