Coevolution

News

15 Jul 2016. Opening for a PhD position in the group on Black hole fuelling, deadline 12 September 2016.

4 July 2016. 39h VLT time granted to Knud Jahnke in Period 98 to study triggering of the highest accretion rates in local black holes.

15 Oct 2015. New paper out: Do the Most Massive Black Holes at z=2 Grow via Major Mergers?.

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Overview

Welcome to MPIA's research group on the topic of "Coevolution of Galaxies and Black Holes", headed by Dr. Knud Jahnke. The group was funded by the Emmy Noether Programme of the German Science Foundation DFG between 2007 and 2014, and has since merged with the Euclid group at MPIA (also headed by Knud Jahnke).

A number of projects study the influence and interaction of the formation of supermassive black holes in the centers of massive galaxies on the surrounding galaxy. The main aim is to constrain the relative interdependence of galaxy interactions, induced star formation, AGN activity and its effect on the migration of massive galaxies from. Keywords are: Starburst-merger-AGN connection and AGN feedback.

We highlight some of our projects - for a complete listing please see our publication page.

People

The group currently consists of:

• Dr. Knud Jahnke (group head)
• Victor Marian (PhD student)
• N.N. (currently searching for a student on hi-z QSO search)

Former group members:

• Dr. Robert Singh, graduate student (08/2011-05/2015)
• Matt Mechtley, postdoctoral researcher (11/2013-11/2015), now close collaborator in the USA
• Liyualem Ambachew, master student (University of Heidelberg, 12/2013-05/2015)
• BSc Marcel Lotz, BSc thesis student (05-08/2014)
• Dr. Katherine Inskip, postdoctoral researcher (03/2008-06/2014)
• Dr. Dading Nugroho, graduate student (08/2008-12/2012)
• Dr. René Andrae, graduate student (05/2009-10/2011)
• Dr. Mauricio Cisternas, graduate student (08/2008-11/2011)

Project areas

Individual project areas are:

• Studying the incidence of merging of galaxies for active galaxies across redshifts, masses, and accretion rates, in direct comparison to inactive galaxies as a function of redshift, luminosity and environment. A crucial aspect is finding the limits of which degree of interaction can actually be seen in HST or VLT images as a function of time since a galaxy merger.

Datasets include:

• The highest mass black holes at z=2 published in APJ; 19 QSOs observed with the HST
• The highest local black holes (z=0.2), observed with FORS and VIMOS. Analysis mainly done, publication in preparation.
• The highest accretion rate black holes at z=2 with Cycle 23 HST images on 21 QSOs.
• The highest accretion rate black holes at z=0.2 with VLT FORS imaging data to be observed in P98, as well as data from Subaru.

Please see the projects page for more detailed highlights of past projects.