Matthew J. Graham

I'm a Research Professor of Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology and the Project Scientist for the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), the first of a next generation of time-domain sky surveys producing hundreds of thousands of public transient alerts per night. I have previously worked on the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS), a still unmatched data set in terms of temporal baseline coverage; the NOAO DataLab; the Virtual Observatory; and the Palomar-Quest Digital Sky Survey.

My main research interests are the application of machine learning and advanced statistical methodologies to astrophysical problems, particularly the variability of quasars and other stochastic time series. This is in part to deal with the unprecedented volumes of data that 21st century astronomy is generating but also to expand our ability to work with complex systems of information beyond simple correlations.

RECENT PAPERS

Understanding extreme quasar optical variability with CRTS: II. Changing-state quasars

Graham, M.J., et al., 2019, MNRAS, in press

We present the results of a systematic search for quasars in the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey exhibiting both strong photometric and spectroscopic variability over a decadal baseline. We identify 111 sources with specific patterns of optical and mid-IR photometric behavior and a defined spectroscopic change. These "Changing-State" quasars (CSQs) form a higher luminosity sample to complement existing sets of "Changing-Look" AGN and quasars in the literature...

Ram-pressure stripping of a kicked Hill sphere: prompt EM emission from the merger of stellar mass black holes in an AGN accretion disk

McKernan, B., et al., 2019, ApJ, 884, L50

Accretion disks around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are promising sites for stellar mass black hole (BH) mergers due to mass segregation and merger acceleration by disk gas torques. Here we show that a gravitational-wave (GW) kick at BH merger causes ram-pressure stripping of gas within the BH Hill sphere....

The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives

Graham, M.J., et al., 2019, PASP, 131, 078001

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a public-private enterprise, is a new time-domain survey employing a dedicated camera on the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt telescope with a 47 deg² field of view and an 8 second readout time. It is well positioned in the development of time-domain astronomy, offering operations at 10% of the scale and style of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) with a single 1-m class survey telescope. The public surveys will cover the observable northern sky every three nights in g and r filters and the visible Galactic plane every night in g and r. Alerts generated by these surveys are sent in real time to brokers...

RECENT PREPRINTS

The first high-redshift changing-look quasars

Ross, N.P., et al., 2019, submitted

We report on three redshift z>2 quasars with dramatic changes in their C IV emission lines, the first sample of changing-look quasars (CLQs) at high redshift. This is also the first time the changing-look behaviour has been seen in a high-ionisation emission line. SDSS J1205+3422, J1638+2827, and J2228+2201 show interesting behaviour in their observed optical light curves, and subsequent spectroscopy shows significant changes in the C IV broad emission line, with both line collapse and emergence being displayed on rest-frame timescales of ~240-1640 days...