Timothy Davis : Tracing out the darkness with cold gas

Speaker : Dr. Timothy Davis (Cardiff University)
Date : 22nd July 2025
Title : Tracing out the darkness with cold gas: dynamically probing galaxy evolution and black holes
Abstract : In this talk I will describe how mapping the dynamics of gas clouds in the centre of galaxies can help us to constrain a wide range of astrophysical problems. From the enigmatic relation between galaxies and their supermassive black holes, to the suppression of star-formation in dying galaxies, the dynamics of cold gas provides an ideal probe that can help us make progress. I will show how ~ten parsec resolution ALMA observations can be used to estimate the masses of supermassive black holes in galaxies across the Hubble sequence, both dynamically, and via the newly discovered ‘fundamental plane of black hole accretion in the millimetre”. I will show that the deep potential wells of massive galaxies change the small-scale structure of the ISM, suppressing star formation, and helping to keep bulge-dominated objects quenched. Finally I will show first results from the KILOGAS project, a new ALMA legacy survey for the resolved extragalactic ISM, that will map molecular gas and star formation across the Hubble sequence in nearly 500 nearby galaxies.