When: Friday March 11th, 2022 at 3 pm
Where: Zoom https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/94525293543?pwd=SVRKZmtST2RmY2J3UXJpaDJ2MDhLdz09
Abstract: The upcoming decades will present exciting opportunities to explore the physics of merging supermassive black holes from the multi-messenger perspective. The electromagnetic identification of dual and binary candidates with subsequent detailed follow-ups will become routine. Thus, a study of the small-scale environment hosting these events provides the necessary groundwork for future investigations. In this talk, I will highlight published results and ongoing work from our Keck OSIRIS AO LIRG Analysis survey, which probes the nuclear gas kinematics in nearby interacting galaxies and beyond in the context of gas feeding and feedback. I will also present a time-domain reverberation mapping study that examines the broad line region kinematics of accreting black holes on a much smaller scale. The power of high-resolution studies in dissecting how systems dynamically evolve will become indispensable for understanding the astrophysics of merging supermassive black holes as we enter an exciting era of astronomy with the imminence of the James Webb Space Telescope, 30-meter class telescopes, and beyond.