Dr. Jack Singal
Department of Physics,
University of Richmond

Abstract

Throughout our universe supermassive black holes lurk at the centers of galaxies, but they cannot be seen directly.  They are known through their effects in their host galaxies, specifically the production of active galactic nuclei with spectacular jets of particles and radiation.  Such active galactic systems are bright in many wavebands of light and therefore can be seen at great distances, and so can be used to systematically study properties of supermassive black holes and their evolution over the history of the universe.  This talk will present results from multiwavelength population studies of active galaxies using data from available large-scale astronomical surveys and custom statistical techniques, and will use these results to draw conclusions about the properties and evolution of
supermassive black holes. 

Jack Singal is currently an associate professor of Physics at the University of Richmond.  He has previously had research appointments at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Stanford University.  Jack’s research program is in three frontier areas in Astrophysics: new measurements and interpretations of the diffuse radio emission and the radio synchrotron background, machine learning approaches to understanding photometric redshifts, and studying the evolution of active galaxies with multiwavelength population studies.