Erica Nelson

Prof. Erica Nelson is an assistant professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Talk title: “2 Fast, 2 Furious: The remarkable power of JWST to revolutionize our understanding of galaxy and black hole formation”

Abstract: The launch and commissioning of the James Webb Space Telescope is ushering in a new era in our understanding of our cosmic origins. Galaxies are a fundamental building block of the universe, yet how they formed has remained enigmatic owing to our inability to observe them at early cosmic times. In just the first two and a half years of data, JWST has already upended our understanding of galaxy and black hole growth in the early universe. In this talk I will discuss some of the surprising results that have come out of our work with JWST and their impact on our understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies. This includes remarkably mature galaxies at early times, galaxies so luminous they allow us to see much further back in time than we thought possible, overmassive black holes, bulges where we thought there were none, and a new method for measuring kinematics that has revealed a monstrous spinning disk 1 billion years after the big bang. Galaxy and black hole growth in the early universe appears to have happened much more rapidly than previously thought, defying predictions from theoretical models. I’ll conclude with a discussion of where the field is moving and the rich discovery space in this new era of extragalactic astrophysics.