Feige Wang

About Me

I am an Assistant Research Professor at Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona. Prior to my current employment, I was a NASA Hubble Fellow at Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona. Before moving to Tucson, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Physics Department of University of California, Santa Barbara and was working in the ENIGMA group led by Prof. Joseph F. Hennawi. I received my Ph.D. (mentored by Prof. Xiaohui Fan and Prof. Xue-Bing Wu) in 2017 from Peking University, with one year at the University of Arizona. I got my bachelor degree from Shandong University at Weihai in 2012.

News:
• Jul/2022: Our ALMA large program (100 hours) was approved for Cycle 9 observations (2022.1.01077.L)
• Jul/2021: Our Chandra large program (900ks) was approved for Cycle 23 observations (GO: 23700397)
• Jul/2021: Our 66-orbits HST program was approved for Cycle 29 observations (GO: 16665)
• Mar/2021: Seven of our JWST programs are approved for Cycle 1 observations (GO: 1554, 1764, 1967, 2028, 2073, 2078, 2249)
Press Releases:
• Jan/2021: The earliest supermassive black hole in the universe
• Jun/2020: Our newly discovered monster black hole was awarded a Hawaiian name
• Jan/2019: The discovery of a distant gravitationally lensed quasar
• Dec/2017: The most distant quasar in the Universe discovered
• Feb/2015: Monster black hole discovered at cosmic dawn
Selected Media Coverage:
Altmetric, BBC, CBS News, CNN, Discover, EarthSky, National Geographic, Nature, Science, Science Daily, Science News, USA Today, SciTech Daily
Image credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva

Research Interests

• The formation of the earliest SMBHs

We are conducting surveys of reionization-era quasars using a combination of optical and infrared wide-field imaging. The goal is to reach the epoch when the first luminous quasars powered by billion solar mass black holes formed in the universe. We are also performing deep X-ray observations and infrared spectroscopy of the most distant quasars to investigate the accrection properties and to measure the masses of the central supermassive black holes (SMBHs).

• Quasar dark matter halos and large scale structures

I am leading a new effort to identify overdense structures associated with the most distant quasars with deep wield field imaging and spectroscopy. The main goal is to resolve the long-standing question of whether the earliest SMBHs reside in the most massive dark matter halos and inhabit large scale galaxy overdensities. This will allow us to identify the most extreme large scale structures in the early Universe.

• Co-evolution of SMBHs and their host galaxies

We are performing high resolution ALMA and HST observations of the host galaxies of the earliest SMBHs in the universe. This, combined with infrared spectroscopy, is revealing the co-evolution of the earliest SMBHs and their massive host galaxies.

• Galaxy redshift survey

I am interested in performing galaxy redshift surveys. I am currently leading a program named as ASPIRE which will construct a legacy redshift survey in biased halos and enable a comprehensive study of galaxies to probe the cosmic star formation history and galaxy evolution from z~10 to z~1.

• Intergalactic medium cosmic reionization

Our newly constructed large quasar sample at redshift beyond 6.5 provides the best sightlines to map the history of cosmic reionization, the last major transiontion phase of our universe.

• Metal content in the early universe

We are using the quasar absorption line techniques to study the metal enrichment in both intergalactic medium and circumgalactic medium.