CAREER: The Hidden Monsters: Cosmic Evolution of Obscured Supermassive Black Holes

该团队将调查被遮挡的超大质量黑洞(SBH)。一些SBHs会附生燃料并发出如此明亮的光，以至于在宇宙中的任何地方都可以检测到它们。但有迹象表明，大多数SBH被燃料包裹得如此之深，以至于到目前为止，它们还没有被检测到。寻找被掩盖的SBH不仅仅是一项整洁的簿记工作。相反，这些信息将有助于解决SBHs和它们的宿主星系如何随着时间的推移一起演化的重要问题。高级团队成员将培训初级成员。该团队还将在教室里举行视频会议，客座天文学家将在那里与高中生讨论他们的研究。该团队将专注于新汉普郡、佛蒙特州和康涅狄格州服务不足的乡村和城市地区的学校。该团队的具体目标是研究(1)被遮挡的SBH如何填充理论家预测的暗物质光晕，(2)被遮挡的SBH可以变得多深，(3)SBH的遮蔽度与其所在星系形成恒星的能力之间的联系，以及(4)在碰撞星系中相遇的被遮挡的SBH的特征。该团队将以达特茅斯学院地面望远镜的新观测为基础进行研究，并通过最近从太空任务中获得的红外和X射线波长的观测来加强研究。他们还将应用最近开发的强大模型来解释观测结果。

The team will investigate obscured supermassive black holes (SBHs). Some SBHs accrete fuel and shine so brightly that they can be detected anywhere in the Universe. But there are hints that most SBHs are so enshrouded in fuel that they have, so far, eluded detection. Finding obscured SBHs is not just an exercise in tidy bookkeeping. Rather, this information will help solve the important problem of how SBHs and their host galaxies evolve, together, over time. Senior team members will train junior members. The team will also run videoconferences in classrooms where guest astronomers discuss their research with high school students. The team will focus on schools in underserved rural and urban settings in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut.The team's specific goals are to study (1) how obscured SBHs populate the dark-matter halos predicted by theorists, (2) how heavily buried obscured SBHs can become, (3) links between the SBH's degree of obscuration and its hosting galaxy's ability to form stars, and (4) signatures of obscured SBHs that meet in colliding galaxies. The team will base their study on new observations with Dartmouth College's ground-based telescopes, augmented by observations recently available from space-based missions at infrared and X-ray wavelengths. They will also apply powerful models recently developed for interpreting the observations.