Title: Probing Supermassive Black Holes and Quasars with the SDSS-V Black Hole Mapper Reverberation Mapping Project
Speaker: Kate Grier (Wisconsin)
Abstract:
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is monitoring thousands of quasars over more than a decade to explore supermassive black holes and quasars at a wide range of redshifts. We have collected hundreds of spectra each for thousands of quasars as a part of the SDSS-V Black Hole Mapper Reverberation Mapping Project (BHM-RM). While the main goal of this program is to measure black hole masses using the technique of reverberation mapping, these spectra have also allowed us to explore quasar variability and learn about supermassive black holes from numerous different angles, ranging from studies of broad absorption-line variability and quasar outflows to studies of extreme variability events and changing-look quasars. I will give an overview of the BHM-RM project and highlight some of the work that we have been doing that has been enabled by this unprecedented spectral dataset.