CAREER: The Highest and Lowest- Mass Black Holes in the Nuclei of Nearby Galaxies

加州大学欧文分校的Aaron Barth博士将开展一个项目，对黑洞质量和宿主星系速度弥散之间的相关性以及超大质量黑洞的质量函数提供新的约束。这项工作将纳入两个相辅相成的研究领域。将对质量最大的附近星系进行黑洞质量的动态测量，以对黑洞质量函数的上端(高于109个太阳质量)提供新的约束。另一个研究领域涉及对质量低于106个太阳质量的黑洞的星系数量的研究，包括对这些天体中黑洞质量的新测量，以及确定其宿主星系结构的新观测。巴思博士还将采取有针对性的努力，扩大和加强加州大学欧文分校的本科生天体物理学课程，并将研究培训纳入课程。他将为初级或高级本科生共同创建并教授一门新的本科生观测天文学实验室课程。本课程的目的是向学生介绍研究方法，并为他们从事观测天文学方面的高级论文工作和暑期研究项目做好准备。作为新实验课程开发的主要部分，巴思博士将为他用IDL图像处理语言编写的天文图像查看和分析软件增加新的功能。这种名为ATV的软件在过去六年里一直在万维网上免费提供，广泛用于在世界各地的大学和天文台的教育和研究环境中交互显示和分析天文图像。

Dr. Aaron Barth at the University of California, Irvine, will undertake a program to provide new constraints on the correlation between black hole mass and host galaxy velocity dispersion, and on the mass function of supermassive black holes. The work will incorporate two complementary areas for research. Dynamical measurements of black hole masses will be performed for the most massive nearby galaxies, to provide new constraints on the upper end of the black hole mass function (above 109 solar masses). The other research area involves a study of the population of galaxies with black holes having masses below 106 solar masses, including new measurements of the black hole masses in these objects and new observations to determine the structure of their host galaxies. Dr. Barth will also undertake efforts targeted toward the expansion and enhancement of the undergraduate astrophysics program at UC Irvine, with a new initiative to integrate research training into the curriculum. He will co-create and teach a new undergraduate observational astronomy laboratory course for junior or senior-level undergraduates. The goal is to give students a hands-on introduction to research methods and prepare them to undertake senior thesis work and summer research projects in observational astronomy. As a major part of the development of the new lab course, Dr. Barth will add new capabilities to his astronomical image viewing and analysis software, written in the IDL image-processing language. This software, called ATV, has been freely available on the World Wide Web for the past six years and is widely used for interactive display and analysis of astronomical images in both educational and research environments at universities and observatories worldwide.