Why
do you think your work is highly cited?
I think there are several reasons.
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“People used to think that supermassive black holes were rare, special features that occurred in a few galaxies. We showed them to be ubiquitous—they are standard equipment in the centers of all or nearly all galaxies.”
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First, we really changed a minor paradigm. People used to think
that supermassive black holes were rare, special features that
occurred in a few galaxies. We showed them to be ubiquitous—they
are standard equipment in the centers of all or nearly all galaxies.
Second, our work tied neatly to other interesting lore. For 30
years people believed that quasi-stellar objects were powered by
black holes lurking in galaxy centers. We showed that the numbers
and masses of the black holes we were finding were consistent with
the expected cosmic density of black holes based on the quasars.
Third, our work provides critical planning information to future
planned exciting projects—like LISA, the Laser Interferometer
Space Antenna.
Finally, we (my collaborators and I) really did it. There has
been some criticism and a fair bit of competition, but it is our
papers that changed the field.
What
are the circumstances which led you to your work?
Serendipity and lucky preparation. I had been working on
modelling stellar dynamics in galaxies and trying to understand how
you would find a black hole, and a colleague called me with data
that he was excited about. Then we were sort of led down the path by
the data.
Would
you describe the significance of this work for your field?
I think it’s quite important, for the reasons noted above. It
changes (or should change) some of the ideas about galaxy formation
as well.
How
much has this research advanced since you first started publishing on
it?
I've been at this since 1987. Then, the claim of a black hole in
a galaxy center was radical and widely doubted. Now it is the claim
that you don't have one that generates the surprise.
Where
do you see this research going 10 years from now?
There is the LISA project. Otherwise, I have been continuously
surprised by how interesting this subject is. One of the wonderful
things about astronomy is that it is really discovery-driven. I
think there will be new developments in this area, but I cannot
guess what they will be.
Douglas O. Richstone, Ph.D.
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI, USA
n
our Special Topics analysis of Black Holes research over the
past decade, the scientist coming in at #7 is Douglas O.
Richstone, with 15 papers cited a total of 1,054 times, and
three of those papers ranking in our lists of the top papers
in this field. In the larger field of Space Science in the 
Web product, Dr. Richstone’s citation record includes 26
papers cited a total of 2,131 times to date. Dr. Richstone is
Professor and Chair of Astronomy at the University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor. He discusses his highly cited work on black
holes in this interview.