Kayhan Gultekin

Two side-by-side blue-scale images of the lenticular galaxy NGC 5102, each overlaid with white contours of constant surface brightness and marked with north and east compass arrows and a 15-arcsecond scale bar. The left panel is a smaller, rotated high-resolution field showing a bright, mottled nucleus with visible dust structure. The right panel covers a wider field, showing the same galaxy as a smooth elliptical glow with concentric contours and a dark dust lane crossing just below the center.

Publication Announcement: Supermassive Black Hole Mass Measurement in NGC 5102

I am pleased to announce that Korbin Waters’s latest paper, A Supermassive Black Hole Mass Measurement in NGC 5102 with Schwarzschild Orbit-superposition Modeling, has been officially published in ApJ. The paper addresses one of the gaps in our knowledge: the low-mass end of the black hole mass function. There, dynamical mass measurements are still rare […]

Picture of a crowded field of stars some red, some blue of varying brightness

CJ Harris to Present at the 16th International LISA Symposium

I am excited to share that my graduate student CJ Harris will be presenting their research on binary supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the 16th International LISA Symposium this summer. The event will be held in College Park, Maryland, from July 6–10. CJ’s work investigates the evolution and detection prospects of these massive systems, and their attendance […]

Korbin Waters Awarded Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant

We are pleased to share that group member Korbin Waters has received a Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant. These funds are designed to support Rackham graduate students in carrying out research that advances their progress toward their degree. This grant will facilitate Korbin’s upcoming research visit to Chile to collaborate with Neil Nagar and his research group. The primary focus of […]

A scientific line plot showing the posterior probability density for the parameter alpha-z, which represents the redshift evolution of the black hole-bulge mass relation. Four colored curves (red, blue, gold, and green) represent different model configurations. Most models show a peak in probability at positive values between 0.5 and 1.5, indicating that the ratio of black hole mass to bulge mass was likely higher in the early universe. Horizontal error bars indicate 68 percent confidence regions, and a gray dashed line represents the uniform prior.

Publication Announcement: Inferring MBH–Mbulge Evolution from the Gravitational-Wave Background

I am pleased to announce that Cayenne Matt’s latest paper—Inferring MBH–Mbulge Evolution from the Gravitational-Wave Background—has been officially published in The Astrophysical Journal. This work addresses a major question in modern multi-messenger astronomy: why is the observed gravitational-wave background (GWB) amplitude significantly higher than standard astrophysical models predict? By comparing semi-analytic models with the observed GWB spectrum, […]

Highlighting Recent Work by CJ Harris: Tackling a Very Hardening Problem

I am thrilled to highlight the exceptional work of CJ Harris, who has just submitted a significant new paper to AAS Journals. CJ is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan and is officially on the postdoc market (see their CV). Their latest research provides a critical analysis of how stellar scattering is likely to […]

COMO 2025!

Along with CJ Harris and Cayenne Matt, I attended the 2025 (11th ~annual??) Compact Objects in Michigan and Ontario meeting. CJ and Cayenne gave excellent talks on their most recent research, including Cayenne’s recently submitted paper and CJ’s very close to submission paper.