August Moser
Research Mentor(s): Kayhan Gultekin
Mentor Department: Astronomy
Authors: August Moser, Kayhan Gultekin
Session: Session 4 (1:00pm – 1:50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 11
Abstract
There is a current method for finding supermassive black hole binary systems and mergers by using their light curves that needs to be tested. Our project seeks to clean and analyze images taken from the Hubble Space Telescope to determine the Centroid of galaxies and their corresponding light curves. These light curves are then used to determine the presence of a potential supermassive black hole binary system. We are using Command Line and the software Xvista to edit and analyze multiple images of galaxies to remove background light, and align and merge the images to provide a composite. We then use light curves to determine the potential presence of supermassive black hole binary systems. We hope to find evidence of supermassive black hole binary systems and mergers in multiple elliptical galaxies. Currently, we have not reached a conclusion, as we were only recently given access to the University of Michigan supercomputer to be able to analyze this data. Our work will ultimately contribute to the discovery of potential super massive black hole binary systems and mergers. This research will benefit many astronomers as it will identify new supermassive black hole binary systems and mergers which can be studied.
