Post-starburst galaxies are an exceptional and rare population of galaxies that have recently and abruptly stopped forming stars. They are thought to represent the transition of a gas-rich, star-forming galaxy into a ‘red and dead’ galaxy. While it is poorly understood what causes the abrupt end of their star formation, there is strong evidence that galaxy-galaxy tidal interactions or mergers trigger the starburst in many of these galaxies. This same mechanism for triggering intensive star formation may also cause strong fueling onto a central supermassive black hole.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has recently provided us images and spectra for over a million galaxies. Approximately 3000 of these galaxies exhibit post-starburst properties. No-one has yet looked carefully at the images of these 3000 galaxies for clues. I am interested in mentoring two motivated high-school students in a summer research project to use this sample of galaxies to investigate the role of galaxy interactions in galaxy evolution.
Research project advisor: I'm an observational astronomer at Northwestern University, in a postdoctoral position. My PhD was on understanding the structural and observational properties of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. My current work is on understanding the role of supermassive black holes in galaxy evolution.
Click here for project materials.
