Prof. Hagai Netzer works on several topics in extragalactic astronomy including: the formation and growth of the first super massive black holes; star formation in the local and early Universe; the parallel evolution of black holes and stellar mass in galaxies; measuring black hole mass using reverberation mapping and direct imaging; the physics and the properties of accretion disks around super massive black holes; the physics of ionized gas and dust in astronomical objects; mergers of galaxies in the early universe; AGN and star formation feedback in various types of galaxies.
Research achievements include: The first successful reverberation mapping of very luminous AGN at high redshift; the most detailed reverberation mapping of a local AGN using HST; the first direct imaging of the ionizing gas in a quasar; characterizing the properties of AGN accretion disks including measuring the black hole spin; identifying the influence of high Eddington-ratio black holes on the surrounding gas; discovering giant galaxy mergers and measuring their star formation rate at z=5; identifying unique star formation in LINERS; finding a new way to identify AGN-driven winds using IR observations.
Future directions: using VLT-Gravity, VLT-SINFONI, JWST, Keck and XMM-Newton to improve and explore new ways in the above topics.