The Impact of Observed Quasar Outflows on Cosmological Structure Formation

AST-0507772 AravQuasar外流影响超大质量黑洞的演化，它们的宿主星系，周围的星系间介质和星系团冷却流。 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，这是这些理论想法的最关键输入。 这涉及三个阶段：1）识别和观察包含对总流出柱密度和流出物距中心源的距离的诊断的目标，这些量目前是高度不确定的; 2）使用对所观察到的流出槽进行全局拟合的新方法来测量可靠的柱密度，通常被严重低估; 3）在速度依赖的光电离模型网格中使用这些柱密度，给出了大大改进的密度、流动距离、丰度，跨学科的本科生研究机会存在于斯隆数字巡天类星体数据库的数据挖掘项目的需要。 从研究中产生的活动星系核风的动画电影将与其他视听工具一起沿着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.