Ann-Marie Madigan
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Astronomy & Astrophysics
When two galaxies merge, the giant black holes at their centers can collide. These supermassive black holes are millions to billions of times heavier than the Sun.
- Fields
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics
- Topics
supermassive black holes
gravitational wave recoil
black hole kick
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Test whether Andromeda's lopsided, eccentric disk of stars in its nucleus records a gravitational-wave recoil kick, by comparing N-body computer simulations of a past major merger with observations of the nucleus.
- Simulate a million-solar-mass merger 2–4 billion years ago with a 300 km/s kick, evolving 10^4 aligned stars as massive particles for 10 million years to see how the stellar disk settles into equilibrium.
- Measure how lopsided stellar disks change the dynamical friction timescale, the time gravitational drag from stars takes to return a recoiling black hole to the galaxy's center.
- Use the simulations to estimate black hole merger event rates and to predict features of the high-energy transients, short-lived bright flares, that follow a merger.
More about the research
The collision releases gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that can give the merged black hole a 'kick' and send it moving away from the galaxy's center. Finding a galaxy whose black hole was kicked and later returned would offer a nearby test case for how black holes grow and how galaxies evolve.
Why it matters
Confirming Andromeda as the nearest recoiled black hole would give astronomers a nearby natural laboratory for gravitational-wave recoil kicks, black hole growth, galaxy evolution and stellar motion. The approach could also serve as a blueprint for finding recoiled supermassive black holes in other nearby galaxies.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Frederic Rasio
Northwestern University, IL·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Develop computer models of dense star clusters that follow their evolution from the earliest star formation at cosmic dawn to today, combining high-performance computing and machine learning.
Adi Foord
University of Maryland-Baltimore County, MD·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Determine how often supermassive black holes merge by using AI to identify galaxy mergers and dual active galactic nuclei (pairs of feeding black holes) in large imaging surveys, and relate these rates to gravitational wave observations.
Tamara Bogdanovic
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Model the time-dependent X-ray brightness and spectra expected from massive black hole binaries as they spiral toward merger while emitting gravitational waves.
The school
University of Colorado Boulder: 36 labs on PI Pages, $718M a year on research, 447 research doctorates a year.
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