Black holes are being born, growing, and merging across the universe, and a team at Southampton is building the tools to watch them do it in real time. The problem is that many of the most violent events in the cosmos—supernova explosions, black holes shredding stars, the collision of supermassive black holes—happen on timescales of hours or days, but most telescopes take snapshots. This leaves huge gaps in our understanding of how compact objects form, feed, and shape their surroundings. The team will combine data from three separate X-ray missions into a single sensitive time-domain survey, model the winds that blow from the disks around supermassive black holes, and use 3D simulations to tackle the “final parsec problem”—why two merging black holes stall before they collide. If successful, this work will produce the first physically grounded feedback prescription for active galactic nuclei and a next-generation Hubble Diagram for supernova cosmology. This is fundamental science. It will not directly change a phone or a power grid. But understanding how black holes drive galaxy evolution and how supernovae measure cosmic distances underpins every future map of the universe—much as early stellar physics once enabled GPS satellites to correct for relativity.
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All aspects of our research programme relate to the physics of compact objects: the supernova explosions that create and destroy them, the accretion that makes them luminous, the outflows that accompany disk-accreting systems, and the effect they have on their environment. We wish to understand the physics behind these phenomena and exploit them, especially for cosmology. We have a special interest in time-domain astronomy as a tool for pursuing these goals. Our interests cover a wide range of scales, from neutron stars to active galactic nuclei. The group is well balanced: our interests span a broad set of topics, but with overlap that allows effective collaboration. Here, we request support for projects across the range of topics outlined above. On Galactic/stellar scales, we will exploit state-of-the-art astrometric and imaging surveys to study the birth and growth of black holes (Project 1). We will also use simultaneous fast X-ray, UV and optical observations to shed new light on accreting X-ray binaries (Project 4). Moreover, we will produce the most sensitive time-domain hard X-ray "meta-survey", by synthesizing data from 3 separate missions for the first time (Project 5). Finally, we will uncover the population of black-hole ultraluminous X-ray sources, the local analogues of super-critically accreting supermassive black holes (SMBH, Project 8). On extra-galactic scales, we will self-consistently model line-driven disk winds in AGN for the first time and hence develop a physically motivated feedback prescription (Project 2). We will also use multi-wavelength time-domain observations of AGN to understand the disk geometry and emission processes close to the central engine (Project 3). In addition, we will use 3D radiation hydrodynamical simulations to address the ``final parsec problem'' for merging SMBHs (project 6). On cosmological scales, we will exploit our leadership of the 4MOST/TiDES survey to build a next-generation SN Ia Hubble Diagram (Project 7). We will also shed new light on the co-evolution of SMBHs and their hosts, by identifying the interaction between feedback and mergers in creating the M_BH vs sigma relation, and by clarifying the roles of internal and external processes (Project 9). Given our long-standing commitment to public engagement with research (PER), we will also develop and deliver high-impact PER activities associated specifically with four projects (Projects 1, 3, 7 and 9). These activities will range from converting astrophysical data into sound (in order to engage with visually impaired audiences) to a high-quality full-dome video illustrating how X-ray, radio, UV and optical observations allow us to "see" the environment around SMBHs.
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