3:30–4:30 pm Zoom - for link, please contact, Laticia Rebeles, lrebeles@oddjob.uchicago.edu
Supermassive Black Holes in Nearby Galaxies
For over three decades, the giant elliptical galaxy M87 had hosted the most massive known black hole in the local universe. New observational data in the past several years have substantially expanded dynamical measurements of black hole masses at the centers of nearby galaxies.
I will describe recent progress in discovering a new population of ultra-massive black holes in local elliptical galaxies. These black holes are revising our understanding of the symbiotic relationship between black holes and galaxies, and of the gravitational wave signals from merging binaries targeted by ongoing pulsar timing array experiments.
