News_archive

  • Oct 2023 – Arran’s paper, entitled “Varstrometry for Off-nucleus and Dual Subkiloparsec Active Galactic Nuclei (VODKA): Investigating the Nature of SDSS J0823+2418 at z = 1.81, A Likely Lensed Quasar“, is published in ApJ.
  • Sep 2023 – Junyao’s paper, entitled “Varstrometry for Off-nucleus and Dual Subkiloparsec AGN (VODKA). SDSS J1608+2716: A Subarcsecond Quadruply Lensed Quasar at z = 2.575“, is published in ApJL.
  • Aug 2023 – Congrats to Grant on being selected for the 2023 LINCC Frameworks incubator program PI!
  • Aug 2023 – Our project, entitled “Dwarf AGNs from Variability for the Origins of Seeds (DAVOS)”, is funded by NSF.
  • Aug 2023 – Our project, entitled “Detection, Instance Segmentation, and Classification for Astronomical Surveys with Deep Learning (DeepDISC)”, is funded by NSF.
  • Jul 2023 – Prof. Liu gave a talk at the EAS 2023 meeting.
  • Jun 2023 – Prof. Liu gave a talk at the Strauss Lupton Fest, entitled “Future facilities for electromagnetic observations of dual and binary AGN”.
  • May 2023 – Our project, entitled “High-redshift Fermi Blazars: Probes of Early Massive Black Hole Seed Formation”, has been approved by NASA/Fermi.
  • May 2023 – Congrats to Colin on successfully defending his PhD thesis!
  • May 2023 – Congrats to Colin on winning the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship!
  • May 2023 – Our proposal, entitled “A census of high-redshift kpc-scale dual quasars”, has been awarded JWST observing time by NASA.
  • May 2023 – Congrats to Grant on winning the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship!
  • Apr 2023 – Congrats to Tony on successfully defending his PhD thesis!
  • Apr 2023 – Tony’s paper, entitled “A close quasar pair in a disk–disk galaxy merger at z=2.17”, is published in Nature. Read press releases by NASA, STScI, NOIRLab, Keck Observatory, Chandra X-ray Observatory, Illinois, and Nature’s News and Views article and podcast on the discovery.
  • Mar 2023 – Our project, entitled “A Systematic Survey of Close Dual and Lensed SMBHs at Cosmic Noon”, has been awarded Hubble Space Telescope observing time by NASA.
  • Mar 2023 – Colin and Tony presented posters at the Aspen meeting on “extreme black holes”.
  • Mar 2023 – Congrats to Tony on winning the Mr. and Mrs. Hsiang-Pai and Wen-Hua Chu Department of Astronomy Excellence in Research Graduate Student 2023 Award!
  • Feb 2023 – Franklin’s paper, entitled “Dwarf AGNs from Variability for the Origins of Seeds (DAVOS): Optical Variability of Broad-line Dwarf AGNs from the Zwicky Transient Facility”, has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
  • Jan 2023 – Arran, Colin, and Tony gave talks at the AAS 241 winter meeting.
  • Dec 2022 – Congrats to Colin on winning the Lewis E. Snyder Graduate Student Travel Award!
  • Dec 2022 – Our project, entitled “A census of galactic-scale quasar pairs and lenses at cosmic noon”, has been awarded Keck observing time by NASA.
  • Nov 2022 – Our project, entitled “Discovering Close Dual and Lensed SMBHs at Cosmic Noon”, has been awarded Hubble Space Telescope observing time by NASA.
  • Nov 2022 – Our paper, entitled “AGNet: Weighing Black Holes with Deep Learning”, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
  • Nov 2022 – Our project, entitled “A Complete Census of Luminous Sub-arcsec Dual/Lensed Quasars at z > 1.5”, has been awarded Hubble Space Telescope observing time by NASA.
  • Oct 2022 – Colin’s paper, entitled “Dwarf AGNs from Variability for the Origins of Seeds (DAVOS): Insights from the Dark Energy Survey Deep Fields”, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
  • Sep 2022 – Postdoctoral research associates Dr. Arran Gross, Dr. Junyao Li, and graduate students Liam Nolan and Grant Merz have joined our group.
  • Sep 2022 – Colin’s paper, entitled “Dwarf AGNs from Variability for the Origins of Seeds (DAVOS): Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Demographics from Optical Synoptic Surveys”, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
  • Aug 2022 – Our project, entitled “Frequency and Abundance of Binary sUpermassive bLack holes from Optical Variability Surveys (FABULOVS)”, is funded by NSF.
  • Jul 2022 – Our paper, entitled “Very Large Array Multiband Radio Imaging of the Triple AGN Candidate SDSS J0849+1114”, is published in the Astrophysical Journal.
  • Jul 2022 – Prof. Liu gave a talk at the Gemini Science meeting, entitled “VODKA: Varstrometry for Off-nucleus and Dual (sub)Kpc Active Galactic Nuclei“.
  • Jun 2022 – Our project, entitled “Continued Monitoring of DES-SN Fields: Candidate Binary SMBHs from Long-Term Quasar Variability“, has been awarded Blanco 4m observing time by NOIRLab.
  • Jun 2022 – Prof. Liu explains “what would happen if two supermassive black holes merged” in this month’s Astronomy Magazine.
  • May 2022 – Gaby gave a talk at the DES Collaboration meeting at Duke, entitled “Selecting Dwarf AGNs in COSMOS with Optical Variability”.
  • Apr 2022 – Congrats to Colin on winning the Mr. and Mrs. Hsiang-Pai and Wen-Hua Chu Department of Astronomy Excellence in Research Graduate Student 2022 Award!
  • Apr 2022 – Congrats to Tony on winning the Lewis E. Snyder Graduate Student Travel Award!
  • Mar 2022 – Prof. Liu gave a talk at the KITP Building Bridges conference, entitled “Electromagnetic Observations of Binary Supermassive Black Holes and Progenitors: New Opportunities with Large Synoptic Surveys”.
  • Mar 2022 – Our project, entitled “DAVOS: Dwarf AGNs from Variability for the Origins of Seeds”, has been funded by the Campus Research Board. Check out more details here
  • Mar 2022 – Our paper, entitled “Investigating the Accretion Nature of Binary Supermassive Black Hole Candidate SDSS J025214.67-002813.7”, is published in the Astrophysical Journal.
  • Mar 2022 – Our project, entitled “UV Spectroscopy and Host Galaxy Imaging of a Possibly Coalescing Binary Supermassive Black Hole”, has been awarded Hubble observing time by NASA.
  • Feb 2022 – Tony’s paper, entitled “Varstrometry for Off-nucleus and Dual Subkiloparsec AGN (VODKA): Hubble Space Telescope Discovers Double Quasars”, is published in the Astrophysical Journal.
  • Jan 2022 – Colin presented his work at the CosmoPalooza meeting, entitled “Variability-Selected Dwarf AGNs in the DES Deep Fields”.
  • Dec 2021 – Our project, entitled “Spatially-resolved Spectroscopy of Sub-Arcsecond Dual and Lensed Quasar Candidates from Gaia and HST”, has been awarded Gemini observing time by NOIRLab.
  • Dec 2021 – Our project, entitled “NIR Spectroscopy of High-Redshift Fermi Blazars: Are Jetted Black Holes Overly Massive?”, has been awarded Gemini observing time by NOIRLab.
  • Dec 2021 – Congrats to Yufeng on winning the Fiddler Innovation Undergraduate Student Fellowship Award!
  • Dec 2021 – Undergraduate student Shreya Majumdar joined our group. Welcome!
  • Nov 2021 – Our project, entitled “VODKA-STIS: Varstrometry for Off-nucleus and Dual (sub)Kpc Active Galactic Nuclei”, has been awarded Hubble observing time by NASA.
  • Nov 2021 – Our project, entitled “VLA Identification of Candidate Dual and Lensed Quasars from Gaia and HST”, has been awarded VLA and Hubble observing time by NRAO.
  • Nov 2021 – Our project, entitled “VLA Imaging of DES-SDSS Periodic Quasars: Completing the Jet Precession Test”, has been awarded VLA observing time by NRAO.
  • Sep 2021 – Tony’s paper, entitled “Very Large Array imaging rules out precessing radio jets in three DES-SDSS-selected candidate periodic quasars”, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
  • Aug 2021 – Colin’s paper, entitled “A characteristic optical variability timescale in astrophysical accretion disks“, is published in Science. Read the press releases by Illinois and Flatiron CCA.
  • Aug 2021 – Colin presented his work at the TESS Science Conference II. Check out the recording here (starting at 1:08:45).
  • Jul 2021 – Our project, entitled “X-ray Properties of High-redshift Close Dual Quasars Discovered by Gaia and HST”, is awarded Chandra observing time.
  • Jul 2021 – Our project, entitled “Varstrometry for Off-nucleus and Dual (sub)Kpc Active Galactic Nuclei (VODKA)”, is funded by NSF.
  • Jul 2021 – Tony and Colin presented their work at the LSST AGN SC meeting, entitled “Supermassive Black Hole Studies with the Legacy Survey of Space and Time: 2021”. Check out the recordings here.
  • Jun 2021 – Colin’s paper, entitled “On the AGN nature of broad Balmer emission in four low-redshift metal-poor galaxies“, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
  • Jun 2021 – Colin’s project, entitled “Pristine Seeds: Confirming a variability-selected dwarf AGN at z ~ 1”, is awarded Gemini observing time.
  • May 2021 – Our project, entitled “NIR Spectroscopy of High-redshift Fermi Blazars: Are Jetted Black Holes Overly Massive?”, is approved by NASA.
  • Apr 2021 – Tony’s paper, entitled “A hidden population of high-redshift double quasars unveiled by astrometry”, is published in Nature Astronomy. Read the press releases by Illinois, STScI, and NSF’s NOIRLab.
  • Mar 2021 – Our project, entitled “Testing the AGN nature of a nearby star-forming knot“, is awarded Gemini observing time.
  • Mar 2021 – Our project, entitled “Kpc-scale Dual Supermassive Black Holes and Their Impact on Galaxy Formation at Cosmic Noon”, is awarded JWST observing time by NASA.
  • Jan 2021 – Graduate student Gaby Torrini and undergrads Franklin Wang and Yufeng Liu joined our group. Welcome!
  • Nov 2020 – Our paper, entitled “AGNet: Weighing Black Holes with Machine Learning”, is accepted to the Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences Workshop at NeurIPS 2020. Read more details here.
  • Nov 2020 – Our project, entitled “Searching for Kpc Dual AGNs at High Redshift”, is awarded Gemini observing time.
  • Nov 2020 – Congrats to Sneh on winning the Fiddler Innovation Fellowship!
  • Oct 2020 – Our project, entitled “Spectroscopic Confirmation of Close Dual or Lensed Quasars from Gaia Astrometry and HST Imaging”, is awarded Gemini observing time.
  • Oct 2020 – Our paper, entitled “Discovery of a Candidate Binary Supermassive Black Hole in a Periodic Quasar from Circumbinary Accretion Variability”, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Read more details here.
  • Sep 2020 – Our paper, entitled “Candidate periodically variable quasars from the Dark Energy Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey”, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Read more details here.
  • Sep 2020 – Our paper, entitled “A Chandra X-Ray Survey of Optically Selected AGN Pairs”, is published in the Astrophysical Journal. Read more details here.
  • Aug 2020 – Our paper, entitled “Optical Variability of the Dwarf AGN NGC 4395 from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite” , is published in the Astrophysical Journal. Read more details here.
  • Jul 2020 – Congrats to Colin and Tony on winning the CAPS fellowship!
  • Jun 2020 – Our paper, entitled “Dark Energy Survey Identification of A Low-Mass Active Galactic Nucleus at Redshift 0.823 from Optical Variability”, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Read more details here.
  • May 2020 – Our project, entitled “Spectroscopic Confirmation of High-Redshift Close Dual/Lensed Quasars from Gaia and HST”, has been awarded Hubble Space Telescope observing time by NASA.
  • May 2020 – Our project, entitled “Radio Properties of a Variability-Selected Dwarf AGN from the Dark Energy Survey”, has been awarded VLA observing time by NRAO.
  • May 2020 – Our project, entitled “VLA Confirmation of Optical and X-ray Selected Dual-AGNs”, has been awarded VLA observing time by NRAO.
  • May 2020 – Our project, entitled “VLA Discovery of Dual and Lensed Quasars from Gaia Astrometry and HST Imaging”, has been awarded VLA observing time by NRAO.
  • May 2020 – Our project, entitled “VLA Imaging of Periodic Quasars: Testing the Jet Precession Hypothesis”, has been awarded VLA observing time by NRAO. Check out details here.
  • May 2020 – Our paper, entitled “The Curious Case of PHL 293B: A Long-lived Transient in a Metal-poor Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxy”,  is published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Read more details here.
  • May 2020 – Our project, entitled “Probing Merger-driven Gas Inflows in Dual-AGNs”, has been awarded NOEMA observing time by IRAM.
  • Apr 2020 – Our project, entitled “X-ray Spectrum of a Periodic Quasar from the Dark Energy Survey: Testing the Binary Black Hole Hypothesis”, has been awarded NuSTAR and XMM-Newton observing time by NASA. Check out details here.
  • Feb 2020 – Our project, entitled “Discovery of Close Dual Binary/Lensed Quasars from Gaia Astrometry and HST Imaging”, has been awarded Gemini observing time by NOAO. Check out details here and here.
  • Jan 2020 – Our paper, entitled “Varstrometry for Off-nucleus and Dual Subkiloparsec AGN (VODKA): Methodology and Initial Results with Gaia DR2”, is published in the Astrophysical Journal. Read more details here.
  • Jan 2020 – Our paper, entitled “Understanding Broad Mg II Variability in Quasars with Photoionization: Implications for Reverberation Mapping and Changing-look Quasars”, is published in the Astrophysical Journal. Read more details here.
  • Dec 2019 – Our project, entitled “Searching Kpc Dual AGNs at Higher Redshift”, was awarded Gemini observing time by NOAO. Check out more details here.
  • Dec 2019 – Our project, entitled “Resolving Torus Emission in A Kpc-Scale Triple AGN with SOFIA/FORCAST”, was awarded SOFIA observing time by NASA. Stay tuned for updates!
  • Dec 2019 – Our paper, entitled “Spectral Energy Distributions of Candidate Periodically-Variable Quasars: Testing the Binary Black Hole Hypothesis”, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Read more details here.
  • Dec 2019 – Our paper, entitled “A Trio of Massive Black Holes Caught in the Act of Merging”, is published in the Astrophysical Journal. Read more details here.
  • Nov 2019 – Our project, entitled “Pilot Follow-Up of Variability-Selected IMBH from the Dark Energy Survey“, was awarded VLA observing time by NRAO. Congrats to Colin!
  • Nov 2019 – Our project, entitled “Discovery of Sub-kpc Dual/Offset AGN from Gaia Astrometry”, was awarded VLBA observing time by NRAO. Check out more details here.
  • Oct 2019 – Our paper, entitled “Deblending and Classifying Astronomical Sources with Mask R-CNN Deep Learning”, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Check out more details here. Code available here.
  • Jul 2019 – Our paper, entitled “Active Galactic Nucleus Pairs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. III. Chandra X-ray Observations Unveil Obscured Double Nuclei”, is published in the Astrophysical Journal.
  • Jun 2019 – Our project, entitled “Host Galaxy Morphologies of Candidate Sub-parsec Binary Supermassive Black Holes: Testing the Merger Hypothesis”, was awarded Hubble Space Telescope observing time. Stay tuned for updates!
  • Jun 2019 – Our project, entitled “Discovery of Sub-kpc Dual Active Galactic Nuclei from Gaia“, was awarded Hubble Space Telescope observing time. Congrats to Hsiang-Chih!
  • Jun 2019 – Our project, entitled “Identifying Binary Supermassive Black Holes from Continued DECam Monitoring of DES-SN Quasars“, was awarded Blanco observing time by NOAO. Check out more details here.
  • Apr 2019 – Our project, entitled “A Systematic Search of Binary Supermassive Black Holes in the Dark Energy Survey”, received an Arnold O. Beckman Award from the Campus Research Board. Check out more details here.
  • Feb 2019 – Graduate student Colin Burke, undergraduate students Devanshi Pratap, Sneh Pandya, and Kaiwen Zhang joined our group. Welcome!
  • Dec 2018 – Our project, entitled “LCOGT Monitoring of A Candidate Binary Supermassive Black Hole in A Periodic Quasar from Circumbinary Accretion Variability”, was awarded LCOGT observing time by the NOAO. Check out more details here.
  • Dec 2018 – Our project, entitled “Radial Velocity Test for Sub-parsec Binary Supermassive Black Holes: Continued Spectroscopic Monitoring of Strong Candidates”, was awarded Gemini observing time by the NOAO. Check out more details here.
  • Nov 2018 – Our project, entitled “Confirming the First Kpc-Scale Triple AGN with the VLA”, was awarded VLA observing time by the NRAO. Check out more details here.
  • Oct 2018 – Our paper, entitled “Constraining Sub-Parsec Binary Supermassive Black Holes in Quasars with Multi-Epoch Spectroscopy. III. Candidates from Continued Radial Velocity Tests“, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Check out more details here.
  • Aug 2018 – Our paper, entitled “Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Identifies an r_p = 1 Kpc Dual Active Galactic Nucleus in the Minor Galaxy Merger SDSS J0924+0510 at z = 0.1495“, is featured by AAS Nova. Read more details here.
  • May 2018 – Our paper, entitled “Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Identifies an r_p = 1 Kpc Dual Active Galactic Nucleus in the Minor Galaxy Merger SDSS J0924+0510 at z = 0.1495“, is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Read more details here. 
  • May 2018 – Alex Dittmann is the winner of the 2018 Wyatt Award. Congratulations, Alex!
  • Mar 2018 – Our paper, entitled “A Candidate Tidal Disruption Event in a Quasar at z=2.359 from Abundance Ratio Variability“, is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Find out about more details here. See also Prof. Liu’s Harvard ITC luncheon talk (webcast link here).
  • Mar 2018 – Prof. Xin Liu gave a colloquium at The Institute for Theory and Computation at Harvard, entitled “Supermassive binary black holes: current observations and future prospects“. Webcast link here.
  • Jan 2018 – Alex Dittmann presented his research, entitled “A Time-domain Analysis of Nitrogen-rich Quasars”, at the AAS meeting. Read more info here.
  • Jan 2018 – Our paper, entitled “Very Long Baseline Array Imaging of Type 2 Seyferts with Double-Peaked Narrow Emission Lines: Searches for Sub-kpc Dual AGNs and Jet-Powered Outflows“, is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Check out more details here.
  • Sep 2017 – Undergraduate students Jessica Medintz and Dhara Mehta joined our group. Welcome, Jessica and Dhara!
  • Jun. 2017 – Dr. Hengxiao Guo joined our group. Welcome, Hengxiao!
  • May 2017 – Graduate student Yu-Ching Chen joined our group. Welcome, Yu-Ching!
  • Mar 2017 – Alex Dittmann has been selected as a recipient of a Research Support Grant by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Congratulations, Alex!
  • Jan 2017 – Prof. Xin Liu has been appointed as a Beckman Fellow by the Center for Advanced Study for her program entitled “A Systematic Search for Merging Black Holes in the Early Universe”. Read more info here.
  • Dec. 2016 – Our project, entitled “Spectroscopic Identification for Six Offset/Dual AGN Candidates at z~2 Selected by Centroid Shifts in Multi-epoch Quasar Images”, was awarded Gemini observing time by the NOAO. Check out more details here.
  • Dec. 2016 – Our project, entitled “Beyond the Angular Resolution Limit: Discovering High-redshift Merging Supermassive Black Holes”, received an Arnold O. Beckman Award by the Campus Research Board. Check out more details here.
  • Sep. 2016 – Undergraduate student Alex Dittmann joined our group. Welcome Alex!
  • Aug. 2016 – Our paper, entitled “A high fraction of double-peaked narrow emission lines in powerful active galactic nuclei”, was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Check out more details here.
  • May. 2016 – Our paper, entitled “Chandra X-Ray and Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of Optically Selected Kiloparsec-scale Binary Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Host Galaxy Morphology and AGN Activity”, was published in the Astrophysical Journal. Check out more details here.
  • Mar. 2016 – Undergraduate student Anna Kofman joined our group. Welcome Anna!
  • Dec. 2015 – Our project, entitled “Hunting for Massive Binary Black Holes with Continued Quasar Spectroscopic Monitoring”, was awarded Gemini observing time by the NOAO. Check out more details here.
  • Sep. 2015 – Undergraduate student Yang Lyu joined our group. Welcome Yang!