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Period2nd(Term: from Apr. 2011 to Mar. 2016)
グローバル型 -
Research InterestsAstronomy
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Research TopicObservational Study on the Formation and Evolution of Massive Black Holes
We, human beings, are now recognizing that there are “super-massive” black holes at the center of galaxies ubiquitously. Their mass is surprisingly high, reaching up to a billion times the solar mass. However, it is totally unclear how such super-massive black holes had evolved during the cosmological timescale. My challenge is to solve this mystery, one of the largest unresolved issues in the modern astronomy, through observational approaches. In previous surveys, numerous relatively low-luminosity black holes were missed due to the limited survey sensitivities. Moreover, any surveys could not find massive black holes beyond 13 billion light-years from the earth, where such black holes should be in a growing-up phase. Therefore I am now promoting a brand-new survey for massive black holes, collaborating with many astronomers. On the other hand, I am focusing also on the chemical properties of matters around massive black holes since they are tightly related with the past star-formation activities in their host galaxies. Through international collaborations (mainly with Italian institutes such as Rome observatory and Florence university), I will study the co-evolution of galaxies and massive black holes in terms of their chemical evolution. These international projects will bring us completely new views on the cosmological evolution of the universe.