Supermassive Black Hole Masses in Lensed Galaxies

The past decade has revolutionized the astronomical observation of black holes. In 2015, the gravitational waves generated by the merger of two black holes were detected, which confirmed the predictions of general relativity and led to a Nobel prize. In 2019, an array of telescopes spread across the globe took the first image of a black hole, and in 2022 this imaging feat was repeated for the black hole at the center of our own galaxy. These advances were made possible by increasingly complex instruments and telescopes; meanwhile, the torrent of data unleashed by this instrumentation has become a testbed for cutting-edge machine learning methodology. Through this Mitacs project, we aim to contribute to this scientific journey by attempting the first-ever mass measurement of a black hole dating to the first billion years of the universe. This measurement will rely on the gravitational effect known as strong lensing, whereby a galaxy’s gravity causes light from a distant galaxy to be deflected, which magnifies the distant galaxy. The machine learning and strong lensing expertise at the University of Montreal will be combined with the dynamical modeling expertise at the University of Oxford; this will forge a lasting interdisciplinary astrophysics collaboration.

Faculty Supervisor:

Yashar Hezaveh

Student:

Partner:

University of Oxford

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Artificial Intelligence; Aerospace; Information and Communications Technology

University:

Université de Montréal

Program: