Monday, February 09, 2015 at 4:00 PM

JILA Auditorium

Michael Eracleous, Penn State University

"Using the Broad Emission Lines of Quasars To Study the Dynamics of Gas in the Accretion Flow"

Abstract:

The broad emission lines of quasars are now used as tools to study the properties of the gas in the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black holes. Examples of such applications include estimating black holes masses, probing the dynamics of the accretion flow, and searching for binary supermassive black holes. The utility of the broad lines as tools depends on our understanding of the structure of the gaseous medium that emits them, the "broad-line region." In this talk I will describe some of the current uses of the broad emission lines and then step back and consider what we know about the broad line region in order to highlight some of the uncertainties inherent in using the broad lines as tools.

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