Georgios Vernardos
Gravitational Microlensing and the Quasar-Galaxy Connection on gSTAR
There is strong evidence that the power sources for quasars are supermassive black holes lurking in their host galaxies. However, the theoretical links between these black holes and their hosts are not fully understood yet. Cosmological microlensing, the study of how compact objects magnify a background source, provides a unique probe for quasar properties. Monitoring of multiply-imaged, microlensed quasars allows observations of quasars at physical scales orders of magnitude smaller than the resolution of our best telescopes. In this project, I am going to use microlensing simulations to explore realistic quasar models.
A critical component of this project will be the use of a brand new supercomputing facility at Swinburne, called gSTAR : the GPU Supercomputer for Theoretical Astrophysics Research, with a processing capability of over 100 Teraflop/s. A major project planned for gSTAR is a high-resolution gravitational microlensing parameter survey. My thesis will include undertaking this survey, analyzing the results and making predictions relevant to future major optical all-sky surveys, which are expected to find thousand of new microlensed quasars in the years ahead.
| Phone | +61 3 9214 5532 | |
| Fax | +61 3 9214 8797 | |
| Office | AR 310 | |
| Personal Webpage | http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~gvernard |