April 2, 2019

Colloquium Associated with the Black Holes Conference

Speaker: Aaron Barth (UC-Irvine)

Contact Information: barth@uci.edu

Title: Measuring Black Hole Masses in Early-Type Galaxies with ALMA

Abstract: Supermassive black holes are found in the centers of all massive galaxies, and they are believed to play a major role in regulating the evolution of massive early-type galaxies. The relationships between black hole mass and host galaxy properties (including mass and velocity dispersion) provide important benchmarks for testing models of black hole-galaxy coevolution, and accurate measurements of black hole masses in nearby galaxies are essential for this work. It has long been anticipated that ALMA observations of molecular gas kinematics in galaxy nuclei could be used to measure the masses of central black holes, and during the past few years this method has been used to obtain robust mass measurements for several targets. I will present results from an ALMA program to observe massive early-type (E and S0) galaxies containing circumnuclear gas disks, and and discuss how ALMA can now provide the most precise determinations of black hole masses at the upper end of the black hole mass range.

Visit Schedule:

Tuesday (02 Apr 2019):


  • 10:30 a.m.: Coffee / Talk Prep

  • 11:00 a.m.: Colloquium

  • 12:15 p.m.: Bahcall Lunch

  • 1:30 PM (after lunch): Michael Strauss (025C Peyton)

  • 2:00 p.m.: Jeremy Goodman

  • 2:30 p.m.: Renyue Cen

  • 3:00 p.m.: Goni Halevi (009 Peyton)

  • 3:30 p.m.: Tea with grad students

  • 4:00 p.m.:

  • 4:30 p.m.: Jenny Greene (001 Peyton)

  • 5:00 p.m.: Eliot Quataert (124)

  • 5:30 p.m.: Sean Johnson (103 Peyton)

  • 6:00 p.m.: DINNER WITH HOST - meet in Grand Central

Dinner Sign-up (students have priority; 8 MAX) - add your name here:

1. Speaker: Aaron Barth

2. Faculty host: Jenny Greene

3. Postdoc host: Andy Goulding

4. Hector Cruz

5. Michelle Baird

6. Sean Johnson (students feel free to take the spot!)

7. Elinor Medezinski (students feel free to take the spot!)

8.

NO MORE THAN 8 PEOPLE (otherwise it is very difficult to properly interact with the speaker)