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University of Michigan Department of Astronomy1034 Dennison Building500 Church Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Office Location(s): 1034 Dennison Phone: 734.615.6139 Fax: 734.763.6317 svanwas@umich.edu Research Website
BS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Advisor: Marta Volonteri
Numerical simulations of black hole dynamics in galaxy mergers
Sandor Van Wassenhove is studying how supermassive black holes co-evolve with their host galaxies. He studies the interaction of star formation and gas accretion — processes by which the galaxies and black holes grow — and their associated feedback. His focus is on mergers between galaxies and the necessary conditions for quasar activity and successful black hole-black hole coalescence. Van Wassenhove uses the N-body smoothed particle hydrodynamics code GASOLINE to perform his merger simulations. Using a suite of mergers with varying mass ratios, morphology, and gas content, he aims to characterize black hole dynamics under a variety of conditions. This work will provide a theoretical perspective for observations of black holes in the local universe, including surveys of dual active galactic nuclei and black hole-galaxy scaling relations.
Structure formation; numerical techniques in astrophysics
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