Kevin Hainline, Dartmouth College

Abstract: The discovery that all massive galaxies contain central supermassive black holes has lead to a great deal of research into how black holes and their host galaxies grow together. As material falls onto a supermassive black hole, an enormous amount of radiation is produced, and it is thought that the radiation from this “active galactic nuclei” (AGN) can significantly impact the evolution of its host galaxy. In this talk, I will discuss research into detecting and characterizing large samples of the most luminous AGNs, quasars, throughout the universe using observations from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). Furthermore, I will describe current work using SALT, Gemini, and MDM observations to examine the extent to which the presence of a quasar can change the gas ionization properties of its host. I will focus on “obscured” quasars, objects where much of the bright UV and optical light produced near the black hole is blocked by dust along our line of sight to the center of these galaxies, allowing us to observe their host galaxies in detail. By finding and exploring these objects, we can understand the delicate relationship between black hole and stellar growth in galaxies both nearby and at large cosmic distances.