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SUMMARY:The Ongoing Hunt for Supermassive Black Hole Binaries - Jessie Run
 noe (Vanderbilt)
DTSTART:20210429T150000Z
DTEND:20210429T160000Z
UID:TALK159556@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Annelies Mortier
DESCRIPTION:Supermassive black hole binaries are thought to be an inevitab
 le product of the prevailing galaxy evolution scenarios where most massive
  galaxies host a central black hole and undergo mergers over cosmic time. 
 The early stages of this process have been observed in the form of interac
 ting galaxy pairs and widely separated dual quasars\, but the close\, grav
 itationally bound binaries that are expected to follow have so far eluded 
 observation. The detection of this population is important because at the 
 smallest separations they become bright sources of low-frequency gravitati
 onal waves. I have been conducting a systematic search for close supermass
 ive black hole binaries among quasars based on the hypothesis that the sec
 ondary black hole in the system is feeding and the resulting emission line
 s will be doppler shifted due to its orbital motion. Binary candidates are
  therefore selected from nearby quasars via substantial (>1000 km/s) shift
 s of the broad H-beta lines relative to the systemic redshift. One key tes
 t of this search is an ongoing spectroscopic monitoring campaign to look f
 or signs of bulk motion of the quasar indicative of orbital motion. I will
  describe the observational research program that I have been leading and 
 my efforts to evaluate the credentials of these candidates in the face of 
 quasar variability. 
LOCATION:ONLINE - Details will be sent by email
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