How Massive Is Supermassive How Massive Is Supermassive? Measuring the Masses of Supermassive Black Holes Dr. Catherine (Kate) Grier, the Pennsylvania State University Email: grier@psu.edu Cell: 630-567-1580 Collaborators: Jonathan Trump (UConn), Yue Shen (UIUC), Niel Brandt (Penn State), Ian McGreer (Arizona), Pat Hall (York), Keith Horne (St. Andrews) and the SDSS Reverberation Mapping Collaboration

Supermassive Black Hole Masses Most massive galaxies are thought to host supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in their centers. Relationships are found between SMBH mass and galaxy Possibly indicates a connection between SMBH growth and galaxy growth In nearby galaxies, SMBH masses are measured from the motions of stars or gas near the center of the galaxy. In more distant galaxies, we use active galactic nuclei, or quasars, to measure masses. Specifically, we use “Reverberation Mapping”

Reverberation Mapping (RM) Uses variability in active galaxies Light “reverberates” outwards in disk Until now, only ~60 relatively nearby objects total have RM measurements. RM is very observationally intensive! Image Credit: Nahks Tr’Ehnl

The SDSS Reverberation Mapping Project Multi-object reverberation campaign with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope Observing 849 quasars at the same time Accompanying observations with CFHT telescope (Hawaii) and Bok telescope (Kitt Peak) Began in 2014, still ongoing The main goal: Pioneer “industrial scale” reverberation mapping --- black hole masses for ~10-100 quasars at large distances Image credits: David Kirkby

Our Results Based on the first year of data, we measured black hole masses for 44 quasars These quasars are much farther away than most of the other active galaxies that have been reverberation-mapped. This is the largest sample of measurements ever to be done at once. Image credit: Grier et al. (2017)

Summary We have measured black hole masses via reverberation mapping in more quasars at larger distances than ever before. We are starting to push out toward the era of prime SMBH growth in the Universe! Our work increases the sample of reverberation-mapped objects by two-thirds (from about 60 to about 100). This work paves the way for future industrial-scale reverberation mapping projects (e.g., SDSS-V, LSST) Measurements like these will inform future simulations and investigations of SMBH and galaxy evolution

Thank you! This work has been published by the Astrophysical Journal: Grier et al. (2017, ApJ, 851, 21) https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.03114 A poster presenting this work can be found tomorrow (January 10) in the AGN, QSOs and Blazars Poster Session. Poster #250.25 Catherine J. Grier, Pennsylvania State University grier@psu.edu 630-567-1580