Manuela Campanelli to lead research team studying electromagnetic signals from merging supermassive black holes.
Rochester Institute of Technology scientists will be the lead researchers on a $1.8 million
“This project aims to drive major steps forward in our understanding of supermassive black holes spiraling into one another at the core of a merged galaxy,” explained Campanelli. “The combined expertise of our team will pave the way for new discoveries.”
The research will have a profound impact on understanding cosmological evolution and will play a critical role in identifying and locating supermassive black hole binaries. Advanced simulations and the world’s largest supercomputers will support the investigations. Lorenzo Ennoggi, an astrophysical sciences and technology Ph.D. student, is also part of the RIT team.
“We have developed all the necessary tools to perform these very challenging simulations, and we are ready to start our investigations,” said Ennoggi. “This is unexplored territory, so whatever we find will be entirely new.”
Studying how black holes merge when galaxies collide will help scientists further understand how galaxies form and evolve. By focusing on the behavior of gas and matter as they are drawn into black holes at various stages of the galaxy merger, the research team aims to create the most accurate and realistic predictions of light signals to date.