What shapes radio galaxies?
Supervisors: Dr. Ray Norris & PhD student Minnie Mao In the centres of many distant galaxies lie Super-massive Black Holes (SMBH), which generate giant lobes of radio emission. The Australia Telescope Large Area Survey (ATLAS) (see http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/deep) is using these to understand how galaxies evolve. However, we don’t yet understand why some radio galaxies look totally different from others. For example, the most luminous (Fanaroff-Riley Class II) radio galaxies are distinctly edge-brightened compared to the lower-luminosity ones. But what causes this difference? Is it because black holes in high density regions are more likely to merge, triggering large amounts of emission, or is it due to the low density regions which enable radio galaxies to achieve their full potential? The width, depth and unbiased nature of ATLAS make this an excellent database to test these hypotheses. The project will involve classifying ATLAS galaxies according to their radio power and morp
