USTC Astronomy Seminar Series: 2023 Spring
Exploring the Supermassive Black Hole at the Galactic Center and the Star Formation History in its Environment
陈卓 博士
University of Washington
2023/06/19, 4:00pm , the 19th-floor Observatory Hall
报告人:
Dr. Zhuo Chen's primary research interests lie in the formation of stellar populations in galactic nuclei, the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way Galactic Center, and the star formation history of Andromeda. Dr. Chen earned her bachelor's degree from Nanjing University in 2016 and completed her Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2022. Subsequently, she joined the University of Washington as a PHAST postdoctoral fellow, where she continues her research to date.摘要:
As the closest galactic nucleus, the Galactic center provides a unique opportunity to study the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sgr A*, and the formation of the stellar population in this environment. In this talk I will present the long-term accretion properties of Sgr A*, utilizing the longest time baseline considered thus far. I will then introduce a new window on the star formation history at the Galactic center. The limitation in our current understanding of the nuclear star cluster (NSC) star formation history is that previous studies assumed that all stars have solar metallicity. However, age and metallicity are degenerate parameters; by ignoring the effect of metallicities, the age estimates can be biased. Recent spectroscopic surveys showed a significant spread in the metallicity of stars, which motivates us to revisit the star formation. I will present, for the first time, the NSC's star formation history incorporating metallicity constraints derived from a large sample of metallicity measurements obtained from Gemini and the VLT. The analysis shows significantly different star formation history than previously published works. Furthermore, we test different initial mass functions, and present more accurate estimates of the number of compact objects and gravitational-wave merger rates. I will also provide a brief overview of the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury (PHAST) survey, a project in which I am actively engaged.