Measuring Supermassive Black Holes and the Hubble Constant with H2O Megamasers
Apr 30, 2024 3:45 - 4:45 pm
134 Astronomy Building
- Sponsor
- Department of Astronomy
- Speaker
- Jim Braatz
- Contact
- Daniel Franco
- danielf9@illinois.edu
- Phone
- 217-300-6769
- Views
- 166
- Originating Calendar
- Astronomy Colloquium Speaker Calendar
Observations of water vapor megamaser emission from the nuclei of nearby active galaxies provide a unique and valuable tool for investigating the structure and dynamics of molecular gas on sub-parsec scales. Megamasers enable gold-standard measurements of the masses of black holes in the nuclei of these active galaxies, and in some galaxies enable a geometric determination of the distance to the megamaser system, thereby providing a measurement of the Hubble Constant. In this talk I will describe progress on these fronts made by the Megamaser Cosmology Project, as well as recent efforts to extend studies of water megamasers from the well-studied 22 GHz transition into sub-millimeter wavelengths using ALMA.