SHAO Astrophysics Colloquia

Title: Some Unsolved Problems in Black Hole - Galaxy Coevolution
Speaker: Luis C. Ho (何子山，KIAA/PKU)

Time: 3:00 PM, January 12 (Thursday)  

Location: Lecture Hall, 3rd floor  

Abstract:

The growth of supermassive black holes is thought to be strongly connected to the evolution of galaxies.  Despite the importance of this key topic in contemporary astrophysics, there are a number of outstanding, unsolved problems.  I will describe current challenges in black hole mass measurements, both in active and inactive galaxies, highlighting issues related to reverberation mapping, ionized gas dynamics, and stellar dynamics.  I will offer some thoughts on ways to make progress in future efforts toward black hole mass measurements.  I will also describe a major new program (BHOLE: Black hole - Host Lifecycle Evolution), which is aimed at a comprehensive investigation of the coevolution of hlack holes and galaxies across cosmic time, focusing on efforts to derive black hole mass accretion rates, galaxy star formation rates, and host galaxy stellar and gas masses.