In the constellation Virgo, 2.5 billion light years away from Earth, a galaxy with little-understood properties generates massive amounts of energy and light. Such deep space objects intrigue astronomy professor Ryan Hickox, who recently received a $50,000 Sloan Research Fellowship to search for quasars. With the grant, Hickox will aim to better understand the supermassive black holes that lie at the center of galaxies and the evolution of the universe.
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation selected Hickox as one of 126 U.S. and Canadian researchers with potential to contribute significant scholarship.
Typically young academics, Sloan fellows are nominated by their colleagues and selected based on research, creativity and potential for scientific leadership.
Hickox, an observational astrophysicist, has researched black holes since joining Dartmouth’s department of physics and astronomy in December 2011.
Quasars are among the brightest, oldest, most distant and most powerful objects in the universe.At their center, quasars, like other galaxies, host supermassive black holes that attract gas and other material and release intense radiation.
Observing quasars gives researchers an idea of how galaxies assemble themselves over time, as it takes time for light to travel, astronomy professor John Thorstensen said.
Hickox is interested in quasars that are obstructed from view. In many cases, gas and dust block the typical ultraviolet and optical light signatures that are normally used to identify quasars.
Until recently, the observational tools to find such hidden quasars did not exist, Hickox said.
Hickox’s proposal focused on using two new telescopes, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, an infrared telescope that launched in 2009, and the Nuclear Stereoscopic Telescope Array, or NuStar, which observes high-energy X-rays.
Quasars, which possess unique signatures in the infrared spectrum, can be observed using WISE because dust does not block infrared light.
NuStar measures high energy X-rays, which are typically emitted next to black holes and can be observed through gas and dust.
Hickox collaborates with NuStar’s science team, giving him priority use of data. Unlike WISE, NuStar must be pointed at specific regions of the sky and is best used to observe areas a few times larger than the moon, Hickox said.
“If you’re interested in how things came to be and what happened to the world to make it the way it is,” Thorstensen said, “this is the kind of thing you want to know.”
Since the Sloan fellowship program’s inception in 1955, 42 fellows have earned a Nobel Prize, 16 have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, 13 have won the John Bates Clark Medal in economics and 63 have received the National Medal of Science.
Hickox is the 20th Dartmouth professor to receive a Sloan grant.
“I was excited, very honored and, frankly, a little surprised because the level of competition is really high,” Hickox said.
At Dartmouth, Hickox has taught courses on galaxies, cosmology, stars and the Milky Way, in addition to introductory astronomy classes. In summer 2012, Hickox organized a five-day international workshop about black holes.
Thorstensen said although the award is smaller than some other scientific research grants, Sloan grants provide great prestige and improved financial flexibility.
“He’s really become known among his peers as a go-to guy,” Thorstensen said.
Tyler Stoff ’15 said that Hickox was especially enthusiastic about black holes during a course last spring.
“Whenever the class focused on black holes, he was probably the most excited person in the room and had the most to say, which is great in a teacher,” Stoff said.
Hickox’s research team includes two undergraduates, four graduate students and one post-doctoral student. All seven students will be involved in the project in varying degrees, depending on their experience.
One of these students, Alexandros Zervos ’16, said in an email that he has found Hickox to be both a great teacher and colleague.
“You’ve got these amazingly interesting exotic objects with extreme gravity that have all these cool energy phenomena,” Hickox said. “To understand where they come from, you have to understand the quasars.”
Stoff is a member of The Dartmouth business staff.
