Milliarcsecond Polarization Studies of Compact Extragalactic Radio Sources

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AST 0098608WardleThis project has two components: The first part of this project is to study the violent activity in the central regions of very distant galaxies and quasars. The centers of these objects can be more brilliant than a thousand normal galaxies, and are the most violent and energetic objects in the universe. Enormous amounts of energy are generated by stars and gas falling into a super-massive black hole that may weigh as much as a billion suns. Much of the energy is focused into jets of matter moving at nearly the speed of light. These jets radiate visible light, x-rays and radio waves, which can be observe. This work aims to determine what the jets are made of, and how they are focused. The ultimate goal is to understand better the physics of massive black holes, and how they generate energy.The second part of this project is to use these same quasars and galaxies to measure how fast the universe is expanding. They are so bright that they can be seen almost to the edge of the observable universe, and back in time to when the universe was very young. This project will use a new and direct way of measuring the distances to these quasars and galaxies. The hope is that, when combined with measurements of their speed away from us, these will determine if the expansion rate of the universe is speeding up or slowing down. The result is important for finding the age of the universe, and for understanding the earliest history of the universe.Funding for this project was provided by the NSF program for Extragalactic Astronomy & Cosmology (AST/EXC).***