Michal Zajaček


Michal Zajaček

Michal is a researcher in the High-Energy Astrophysics group at the Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, currently leading the working group involved in the studies of galactic nuclei. He has been studying a broad range of phenomena in galactic nuclei, including star-formation in the Galactic center, broad-line region dynamics in active galactic nuclei as well as kinematics of jets in blazars. In recent years, he has also become interested in the application of quasars for constraining cosmological parameters.

Michal did his PhD degree at the University of Cologne within the framework of the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Astronomy & Astrophysics in 2017. He has been working on the dynamics of gas and stars in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole, with the application to interpret the near-infrared observations of the Galactic Center. He also dedicated a part of his PhD for studying radio-optical properties of a sample of intermediate-redshift galaxies. Later, for one year and a few months, he continued at the MPIfR in Bonn to study the signs of jet precession in radio galaxies. Later, during his postdoctoral stay in Warsaw, Poland, he dedicated a significant part of his research to the reverberation-mapping of luminous, higher-redshift quasars using broad MgII and FeII lines. Among his most important reseach contributions are the confirmation of MgII radius-luminosity relation and its application to cosmology, the tentative confirmation of pre-main-sequence stars around Sgr A* on the scale of 10000 AU from the supermassive black hole, the explanation of the lack of large red giants in the Galactic center, the methodology for constraining electric charge of Sgr A*, and the application of the jet precession model to interpret the variability of some radio galaxies.

In his free time, Michal is involved in the public outreach of astronomy results. In addition, he is dedicated to the informal education of elementary and high-school students. He collaborates with the non-profit organization AMAVET (Association for Youth, Science, and Technology). He also established a multidisciplinary online seminar LaBaK, which is intended for kindergarten children, elementary, and high-school students.

EDUCATION:
 
 
10/2017 PhD in Astrophysics: “Interplay between interstellar medium and black hole environment” at the University of Cologne and Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, Germany; PhD advisors: Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckart & Prof. Dr. Anton Zensus
 
12/2014 Rigorosum examination (RNDr. title) Charles University in Prague
 
06/2014 MSc in Astronomy & Astrophysics “Neutron stars near a galactic center” at the Charles University in Prague; Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Vladimír Karas
 
06/2012 BSc in General Physics “The Late Heavy Bombardment at various places of the Solar System” at the Charles University in Prague; Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Miroslav Brož
 
 

POSITIONS:
 
 
since 2024  Leader of the Galactic Nuclei working group, Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics at the Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
 
2021 - 2024  Postdoctoral researcher in the High-Energy Astrophysics group, Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics at the Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
 
2019 - 2021 Postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Theoretical Physics (quasar group of Prof. B. Czerny), Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
 
2017 - 2019 Junior postdoctoral fellow in the Very Long Baseline Interferometry group, Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy, Bonn, Germany

Selected Publications

On the charge of the Galactic centre black hole (arXiv).
M. Zajaček, A. Tursunov, A. Eckart, and S. Britzen, MNRAS, vol. 480, pp. 4408-4423, Nov. 2018.

Dust-enshrouded star near supermassive black hole: predictions for high-eccentricity passages near low-luminosity galactic nuclei (arXiv).
M. Zajaček, V. Karas, A. Eckart, A&A, vol. 565, p. A17, May 2014.

Effect of an isotropic outflow from the Galactic Centre on the bow-shock evolution along the orbit (arXiv).
M. Zajaček, A. Eckart, V. Karas, D. Kunneriath, B. Shahzamanian, N. Sabha, K. Muzic, M. Valencia-S., MNRAS, vol. 455, pp. 1257-1274, Jan. 2016.

Nature of the Galactic centre NIR-excess sources. I. What can we learn from the continuum observations of the DSO/G2 source? (arXiv).
M. Zajaček, S. Britzen, A. Eckart, B. Shahzamanian, G. Busch, V. Karas, M. Parsa, F. Peissker, M. Dovciak, M. Subroweit, F. Dinnbier, J. A. Zensus, A&A, vol. 602, p. A121, June 2017.

Time-delay Measurement of Mg II Broad-line Response for the Highly Accreting Quasar HE 0413-4031: Implications for the Mg II-based Radius-Luminosity Relation (arXiv).
M. Zajaček, B. Czerny, M. L. Martinez-Aldama, M. Ralowski, A. Olejak, S. Panda, K. Hryniewicz, M. Sniegowska, M.-H. Naddaf, W. Pych, G. Pietrzynski, C. Sobrino Figaredo, M. Haas, J. Sredzinska, M. Krupa, A. Kurcz, A. Udalski, M. Gorski, M. Sarna, ApJ, vol. 896, p. 146, June 2020.

Radio spectral index distribution of SDSS-FIRST sources across optical diagnostic diagrams (arXiv).
M. Zajaček, G. Busch, M. Valencia-S., A. Eckart, S. Britzen, L. Fuhrmann, J. Schneeloch, N. Fazeli, K. C. Harrington, and J. A. Zensus, A&A, vol. 630, p. A83, Oct. 2019.


For a complete list of publications see here.