Finding the First Supermassive Black Holes with Euclid and WFIRST

More than 50 quasars have now been discovered at z > 6, or less than a billion
years after the Big Bang. Their existence poses severe challenges to current
theories of cosmological structure formation because it is not known how black
holes above a billion solar masses formed by such early times. We will use state
of the art supercomputer simulations to model the births and evolution of the first
quasars in the universe that include how x-rays from the black holes reionized
the early universe. Our models will produce synthetic observables such as near
infrared (NIR) continuum and Lyman-alpha luminosities for supermassive black
holes down through cosmic time and predict the properties of quasars yet to be
found at z > 6.

Schools: ICG is a member of the South East Physics Network (SEPNet; www.sepnet.ac.uk) which
coordinates a regional outreach programme led by a central outreach director to support the
development and dissemination of good practice and the assessment of impact. Since 2011, SEPnet
outreach has delivered activities to over 100k people. Since 2012, the ICG has employed a SEPnet /
Ogden Outreach Officer (Jennifer Gupta) who has developed our own professionally-run schools
programme. This includes our popular "A Visit from Space" (engaging 609 KS2 children since Oct
2013), our own Astrodome facility (targeted at secondary schools), and our "Cosmology
Masterclass", which supports A-level Physics (e.g. 107 students attended in 2013-14, 60%
commenting that the event changed their view on studying STEM at university). On top of this,
ICG members engaged with 2729 school pupils in 2013-14 through individual talks, workshops and
other events and hosted several work experience students. With all these activities, I am committed
to encouraging wider participation in science and higher education. We work with our University
Education, Liaison and Outreach Team to ensure our activities are advertised to target widening
participation schools, of which there are many in the Portsmouth area.

Public Engagement: All ICG members are encouraged to communicate the results of their science to
help inspire the public. Our main engagement is through talks and presentations e.g. in 2014, ICG
members delivered 37 public activities (e.g. Bestival, Winchester Science Festival). We also host
annual public lectures by prominent external cosmologists (Bernard Shutz in 2014) which always sell
out to capacity. ICG staff and students help deliver major annual "BBC Stargazing Live" local events
with thousands of ticketed visitors. Finally, we engage with the public through traditional and online
media. In the last year, staff have featured in a variety of print articles (Economist, Nature, Astronomy),
appeared on the BBC Horizon (March 2015) and "Sky at Night" (June 2014), and worked to obtain
excellent exposure in the local media (print, radio and TV).