Building the First Quasars: Simulating the Formation of Massive Black Holes in Protogalaxies

Jemma Wolcott-Green被授予美国国家科学基金会天文学和天体物理学博士后奖学金，在加州大学圣巴巴拉分校开展一个研究和教育项目。她将对早期宇宙中超大质量黑洞的成长进行高分辨率的三维计算机模拟。除了这项研究，她还将为物理学和天文学的本科生设计和教授一系列研讨会，并为女性本科生和研究生提供指导。这项研究计划旨在提高我们对早期宇宙中超大质量黑洞的理解。在宇宙形成的最初10亿年里，一些黑洞的质量迅速增长到10亿个太阳的质量，这一点至今仍无法解释。这个项目将专注于通过早期星系中气体云的直接坍缩来模拟大质量黑洞种子的形成，试图解释超大质量黑洞的快速增长。这项工作的教育部分将包括课程开发以及指导活动，以帮助增加妇女在科学、技术、工程和数学领域的参与和保留。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Jemma Wolcott-Green is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to conduct a program of research and education at University of California, Santa Barbara. She will perform high-resolution three-dimensional computer simulations of the growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe. Alongside this research, she will design and teach a seminar series for undergraduates in physics and astronomy, as well as offer mentoring for women undergraduate and graduate students. The proposed research program seeks to advance our understanding of the growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe. The rapid growth of some black holes to masses of a billion solar masses during the first billion years of the universe remains unexplained. This project will focus on modeling the formation of massive black hole seeds by direct collapse of gas clouds in early galaxies to try to explain the rapid growth of supermassive black holes. The educational component of the work will include coursework development as well as mentoring activities to help increase the participation and retention of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.