Black Hole Demography: From scaling relations to models
Abstract
In this contributed paper I review our current knowledge of the local Black Hole (BH) scaling relations, and their impact on the determination of the local BH mass function. I particularly emphasize the remaining systematic uncertainties impinging upon a secure determination of the BH mass function and how progress can be made. I then review and discuss the evidence for a different time evolution for separate BH-galaxy scaling relations, and how these independent empirical evidences can be reconciled with the overall evolution of the structural properties of the host galaxies. I conclude discussing BH demography in the context of semi-empirical continuity accretion models, as well as more complex evolutionary models, emphasizing the general constraints we can set on them.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1307.3289,
title = {Black Hole Demography: From scaling relations to models},
author = {Francesco Shankar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.3289},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
20 pages, 5 figures. Invited article for the focus issue on astrophysical black holes in Classical and Quantum Gravity, guest editors: D.Merritt and L. Rezzolla