Weighing the Invisible - Martin Bureau (Oxford)

Supermassive black holes are now known to lurk at the centre of most galaxies. They are also believed to play a key role in the evolution of galaxies, by regulating the supply of the gas necessary to form stars. Here, I will present key results from the mm-Wave Interferometric Survey of Dark Object Masses (WISDOM), a high resolution survey of molecular gas in galaxy nuclei. I will first show that carbon monoxide (CO) can be used to easily and accurately measure the mass of these supermassive black holes. I will then discuss substantial ongoing efforts to do this, and present many new spectacular measurements from the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), the largest ground-based telescope project. This effort opens the way to literally hundreds of measurements across galaxies of all morphological types, both active and non-active, with a unique method. It thus promises to revolutionise our understanding of the co-evolution of galaxies and black holes.

La conférence est pour tout public et le café est servi dès 11h30.

https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/contacts/people/bureau