Postdoctoral Fellowship: AAPF: A precise measurement of intermediate-mass black hole demographics with the Rubin Observatory

Colin Burke is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at Yale University. Burke will study and execute new techniques for identifying intermediate-mass black holes — the missing link between stellar mass and supermassive black holes — from accretion signatures in large optical surveys. Results from the study will inform our understanding of the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes that can be found in every massive galaxy in the nearby Universe. Burke will conduct outreach activities to introduce new data science in astronomy programming to underrepresented high school students interested in a career in science. This program will develop and apply Bayesian modeling techniques to study the population of intermediate-mass black holes using survey data such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Multiple complementary modeling approaches and datasets will be used to accomplish the proposed goals. Using these data and methods, Burke will place new constraints on the number densities and properties of intermediate-mass black holes and use them as laboratories for studying the physics of black hole accretion on human timescales. This project advances the goals of the NSF Windows on the Universe Big Idea. This research award is partially funded by a generous gift from Charles Simonyi to the NSF Astronomy division. The project includes significant contributions to Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.