Research Activities

Dr. Salviander and Dr. Shields are pursuing a long-term program of study of black hole demographics in Active Galactic Nuclei. This involves the use of AGN emission lines to assess the mass of the central black hole and basic properties of the host galaxy. A particular focus is the evolution of the ratio of black hole mass to galaxy mass as a function of cosmic time. Shields and collaborators are continuing a program of study of dual AGN and binary black holes in galaxies.

Dr. Shields and collaborators are working on the nature of the apparent temperature fluctuations in planetary nebulae, including the possibility of non-Maxwellian electron energy distributions. Shields and coworkers are extending earlier work on the influence of environment on the chemical evolution of galaxies, in particular the abundance ratio of different chemical elements.