Location: Multifunctional Hall on the 5th floor Meeting time: 2021/04/28 14:00-15:00 (CST)
Speaker: Luis C. Ho (Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University)
The Impact of Supermassive Black Holes on Galaxy Formation
Luis C. Ho
Abstract
The centers of all massive galaxies contain supermassive black holes weighing millions to tens of billions times the mass of the Sun. Recent observations reveal that even a significant fraction of low-mass galaxies contain smaller intermediate-mass black holes, which give new insights into the birth of supermassive black holes and offer predictions for the next generation of gravitational wave experiments. Accretion of matter by central black holes power energetic phenomena such as quasars and various forms of active galactic nuclei. The energy and momentum released by accretion, in turn, may strongly influence the lifecycle of galaxies. I will summarize the critical observations over the past 20 years that have led to the discovery of the widespread existence of black holes in galaxies, which is among one of the most important developments in modern astrophysics.
Bio
Professor He Zishan was born in Guangdong Province in 1967. He grew up in Macau and Mozambique as a child, and then studied in the United States. He received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1990, a master’s degree and a doctorate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1991 and 1995, respectively. From 1995 to 1998, he did postdoctoral research at the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University, and then joined the Carnegie Observatory in the United States as a tenured astronomer (equivalent to a full professor) and became the first Chinese researcher hired by the famous research institution in the past 100 years. . Professor He Zishan is an expert in the field of astronomical observation. He uses the most advanced astronomical telescopes on the ground and in space to conduct multi-band astrophysics observational research across the radio to X-ray bands. His research covers many different but interrelated fields, including active galactic nuclei, accretion disks and other high-energy astrophysics mechanisms, searching for supermassive black holes and their relationships with galaxies, and exploring the mechanisms of galaxy formation and evolution. So far, relevant research results have been published in more than 560 peer-reviewed academic papers, cited more than 47,300 times, and the H impact factor is 104. His scientific research results on the first image of a supermassive black hole won the 2020 Basic Physics Research Major Breakthrough Award (shared with all members of the ETH telescope team). He serves as a consultant in many domestic and international professional committees. He served as the deputy editor of “Astrophysical Monthly Letters”, a member of the editorial board of “Annual Report of Astrophysics and Astrophysics”, and a member of the selection committee for the Shaw Prize. Professor He Zishan has extensively participated in the construction and development of astronomy in China and East Asia, and has participated in the construction and planning of current and future large-scale telescope equipment and projects, including the Chinese Space Telescope. Since 2014, he has served as the director and chair professor of the Coveli Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University in China. He passed the expert review of the tenth batch of long-term innovation projects of the Thousand Talents Program. He also served as the chief scientist of the key special projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the national Chief Scientist of Innovation Group of Natural Science Foundation of China.