CAREER: The Hidden Monsters: Cosmic Evolution of Obscured Supermassive Black Holes

Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

Investigators

Abstract

The team will investigate obscured supermassive black holes (SBHs). Some SBHs accrete fuel and shine so brightly that they can be detected anywhere in the Universe. But there are hints that most SBHs are so enshrouded in fuel that they have, so far, eluded detection. Finding obscured SBHs is not just an exercise in tidy bookkeeping. Rather, this information will help solve the important problem of how SBHs and their host galaxies evolve, together, over time. Senior team members will train junior members. The team will also run videoconferences in classrooms where guest astronomers discuss their research with high school students. The team will focus on schools in underserved rural and urban settings in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut. The team's specific goals are to study (1) how obscured SBHs populate the dark-matter halos predicted by theorists, (2) how heavily buried obscured SBHs can become, (3) links between the SBH's degree of obscuration and its hosting galaxy's ability to form stars, and (4) signatures of obscured SBHs that meet in colliding galaxies. The team will base their study on new observations with Dartmouth College's ground-based telescopes, augmented by observations recently available from space-based missions at infrared and X-ray wavelengths. They will also apply powerful models recently developed for interpreting the observations.