The Impact of Observed Quasar Outflows on Cosmological Structure Formation

类星体的外流影响着超大质量黑洞、它们的宿主星系、周围星系间介质和星团冷却流的演化。该项目将分析高分辨率光谱数据，以测量观测到的类星体风的动力学光度和化学丰度，这是这些理论思想最重要的输入。这包括三个阶段：1)识别和观察包含总流出柱密度和从中心源流出距离的诊断的目标，这些数量目前是高度不确定的；2)利用对观测到的流出槽进行全局拟合的新方法，测量通常被严重低估的可靠柱密度；3)在速度依赖的光电离模型网格中使用这些柱密度，可以大大改善密度、流动距离、丰度，从而得到动力学光度。跨学科的本科生研究机会存在于该项目对斯隆数字巡天类星体数据库数据挖掘的需求中。这项研究创造的来自活动星系核的风的动画电影，将与其他视听工具一起用于天文馆向公众展示。

AST-0507772AravQuasar outflows impact the evolution of super-massive black holes, their host galaxies, the surrounding inter-galactic medium, and cluster cooling flows. This project will analyze high-resolution spectroscopic data to measure the kinetic luminosity and chemical abundances of observed quasar winds, which are the most crucial input to these theoretical ideas. This involves three phases: 1) identifying and observing targets that contain diagnostics for the total outflowing column density and for the distance of the outflow from the central source, quantities which are currently highly uncertain; 2) measuring reliable column densities, often severely underestimated, using a new approach of global fitting to the observed outflow troughs; 3) using these column densities in velocity-dependent photoionization model grids, giving much improved densities, flow distances, abundances, and thus kinetic luminosities.Interdisciplinary undergraduate research opportunities exist in the project's need for data mining of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasar database. Animation movies of winds from active galactic nuclei, created from the research, will be used in planetarium shows for the general public, along with other audio-visual tools.