Séminaire/Seminar Galaxies |
| « Seeds that didn’t sprout: finding and characterizing intermediate-mass black holes at z ~ 0 » |
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Chris Richardson |
| Dwarf galaxies are the most common systems in the Universe and therefore crucial to a holistic understanding of galaxy evolution; however, current observations remain strongly biased towards giant galaxies. This inhibits the ability to address fundamental questions spanning many fields in astronomy. In particular, the question of how giant galaxies form supermassive black holes is one that dwarfs are well suited to answer. I will present state-of-the-art photoionization models tailored to finding accreting intermediate-mass black holes in dwarf AGN, which are metal-poor and highly star-forming, while accounting for XRB populations. I will highlight emission line diagnostics capable of identifying dwarf AGN at z~0, increasing the local dwarf AGN fraction up to 15x previous estimates. I will show that while X-ray binaries can masquerade as dwarf AGN, emission lines diagnostics detectable with JWST can effectively separate the two excitation mechanisms. |
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jeudi 23 janvier 2025 - 11:30 Salle du Conseil Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris |
| Page web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage |