Doctoral Dissertation Research: International: Fueling of Faint Active Galactic Nuclei: Obscured or Intrinsically Weak

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This program continues the collaboration between University of Arizona graduate student Jonathan Trump and Ehime University (Japan) Professor Yoshiaki Taniguchi. Their research centers on supermassive black holes (SMBHs), which are found in the centers of all galaxies and are millions to billions of times more massive than our sun. SMBHs in the distant universe are bright because they rapidly accrete nearby stars and gas, while most local SMBHs (such as the one at the center of the Milky Way galaxy) are passive and extremely faint. Trump and the PI have led COSMOS spectroscopy using the US-operated Magellan telescope, while Professor Taniguchi has led the optical photometry using the Japan-operated Subaru telescope. Their previous work has suggested the first evidence for a transition phase between highly accreting distant SMBHs and local passive SMBHs. This program will use the optical photometry to identify more weakly accreting SMBHs that were too faint for spectroscopy, with the goal of connecting the increase in accretion to a change in galaxy evolution and fueling history. The program will also use spectropolarimetry with an instrument available only on the Japan-operated Subaru telescope, looking for signatures of obscuration and hidden fueling in the weakly accreting SMBHs. The broader impacts of the proposed research center on the preparation by the PI of a popular article on the evolution of black holes down to modest mass examples, and the outreach work of Jonathan Trump at Ehime University, where he will coach local graduate students on skills in giving presentations in English and on surveying research literature through the use of journal club activities.