Publications (13)
Accretion Flares from Stellar Collisions in Galactic Nuclei
Betty X. Hu, Avi Loeb
The strong tidal force in a supermassive black hole's (SMBH) vicinity, coupled with a higher stellar density at the center of a galaxy, make it an ideal location to study the inter…
Measuring the Accreting Stellar and Intermediate Mass Black Hole Populations in the Galaxy and Local Group
Jonathan Grindlay, Didier Barret, Tomaso Belloni +23
The population of stellar black holes (SBHs) in the Galaxy and galaxies generally is poorly known in both number and distribution. SBHs are the fossil record of the massive stars i…
A Machine Learning Framework for Stellar Collision Transient Identification
Betty X. Hu, Avi Loeb
Modern astronomical surveys, such as the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), are capable of detecting thousands of transient events per year, necessitating the use of automated and sc…
21 cm Intensity Mapping
Jeffrey B. Peterson, Roy Aleksan, Reza Ansari +37
Using the 21 cm line, observed all-sky and across the redshift range from 0 to 5, the large scale structure of the Universe can be mapped in three dimensions. This can be accomplis…
Empirical Constraints on the First Stars and Quasars
Zoltan Haiman, Avi Loeb
Empirical studies of the first generation of stars and quasars in the Universe will likely become feasible over the next decade. The Next Generation Space Telescope will provide di…
The correlation between the distribution of galaxies and 21cm emission at high redshifts
Stuart Wyithe, Avi Loeb
Deep surveys have recently discovered galaxies at the tail end of the epoch of reionization. In the near future, these discoveries will be complemented by a new generation of low-f…
The Imprint of Cosmic Reionization on Galaxy Clustering
Stuart Wyithe, Avi Loeb
We consider the effect of reionization on the clustering properties of galaxy samples at intermediate redshifts (z~0.3-5.5). Current models for the reionization of intergalactic hy…
Probing the Spacetime Around Sgr A* with Radio Pulsars
Eric Pfahl, Avi Loeb
The supermassive black hole at the Galactic center harbors a bound cluster of massive stars that should leave neutron-star remnants. Extrapolating from the available data, we estim…
Imaging an Event Horizon: submm-VLBI of a Super Massive Black Hole
Sheperd Doeleman, Eric Agol, Don Backer +20
A long standing goal in astrophysics is to directly observe the immediate environment of a black hole with angular resolution comparable to the event horizon. Realizing this goal w…
The Correlation Between Star Formation and 21cm Emission During the Reionization Epoch
Stuart Wyithe, Avi Loeb, Brian Schmidt
Reionization is thought to be dominated by low mass galaxies, while direct observations of resolved galaxies probe only the most massive, rarest objects. The cross-correlation betw…
The Dynamic X-ray Sky of the Local Universe
Alicia M. Soderberg, Jonathan E. Grindlay, Joshua S. Bloom +35
Over the next decade, we can expect time domain astronomy to flourish at optical and radio wavelengths. In parallel with these efforts, a dedicated transient "machine" operating at…
A New Era in Extragalactic Background Light Measurements: The Cosmic History of Accretion, Nucleosynthesis and Reionization
Asantha Cooray, Alexandre Amblard, Charles Beichman +52
(Brief Summary) What is the total radiative content of the Universe since the epoch of recombination? The extragalactic background light (EBL) spectrum captures the redshifted ener…
First Light Sources at the End of the Dark Ages: Direct Observations of Population III Stars, Proto-Galaxies, and Supernovae During the Reionization Epoch
Jeff Cooke, Asantha Cooray, Ranga-Ram Chary +16
The cosmic dark ages are the mysterious epoch during which the pristine gas began to condense and ultimately form the first stars. Although these beginnings have long been a topic…