Related papers: Detecting quasars at very high redshift with next …
The evolution of the quasar luminosity function (QLF) is fundamental to understanding the cosmic evolution of black holes (BHs) through their accretion phases. In the era of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Euclid, and Nancy Grace…
We investigate the black hole mass function at $z\sim5$ using XQz5, our recent sample of the most luminous quasars between the redshifts $4.5 < z < 5.3$. We include 72 quasars with black hole masses estimated from velocity-broadened…
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) of 10^9-10^10 Msun were already in place ~13 Gyr ago, at z>6. Super-Eddington growth of low-mass BH seeds (~100 Msun) or less extreme accretion onto ~10^5 Msun seeds have been recently considered as the main…
X-ray observations provide a unique probe of the accretion disk corona of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). In this paper, we present a uniform \emph{Chandra} X-ray data analysis of a sample of 152 $z\geq4.5$ quasars. We firmly detect 46…
Very compact ($R_\mathrm{e}\lesssim1$ kpc) massive quiescent galaxies (red nuggets) are more abundant in the high-redshift Universe ($z\sim2$-$3$) than today. Their size evolution can be explained by collisionless dynamical processes in…
Quasars at early redshifts ($z > 6$) with companion galaxies offer unique insights into the growth and evolution of the first supermassive black holes. Here, we report on a 150 ks Chandra observation of PSO J308.0416$-$21.2339, a $z=6.23$…
This study aims at identifying luminous quasars at $z>5.7$ among X-ray-selected sources in the eROSITA Final Equatorial-Depth Survey (eFEDS) in order to place a lower limit on black hole accretion well into the epoch of re-ionisation. We…
The detection of high-redshift ($z>$3) blazars enables the study of the evolution of the most luminous relativistic jets over cosmic time. More importantly, high-redshift blazars tend to host massive black holes and can be used to constrain…
We present the results of new infrared spectroscopic observations of 37 quasars at z~3, selected based on the optical r'-band magnitude and the availability of nearby bright stars for future imaging follow-up with Adaptive Optics system.…
Next-generation ground-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors are expected to observe millions of binary black hole mergers, a fraction of which will be strongly lensed by intervening galaxies or clusters, producing multiple images with…
The study of heavily obscured supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth in late-stage galaxy mergers is challenging: column densities $N_{\mathrm{H}}>10^{24},\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$ can block most nuclear emission, leaving significant gaps in the…
Space telescope observations of massive black holes during their formation may be key to understanding the origin of supermassive black holes and high-redshift quasars. To create diagnostics for their detection and confirmation, we study a…
The presence of supermassive black holes at redshift z > 6 raises some questions about their formation and growth in the early universe. Due to the construction of new telescopes like the ELT to observe and detect SMBHs, it will be useful…
The evolution of the luminosity function (LF) of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) at $z \gtrsim 5$ represents a key constraint to understand their contribution to the ionizing photon budget necessary to trigger the last phase transition in the…
We discuss a model for the early assembly of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of galaxies that trace their hierarchical build-up far up in the dark halo `merger tree'. Motivated by the observations of luminous quasars around…
We employ cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to study the growth of massive black holes (BHs) at high redshifts subject to BH merger recoils from gravitational wave emission. We select the most massive dark matter halo at z=6 from the…
Many present-day galaxies are known to harbor supermassive, >10^6 Mo, black holes. These central black holes must have grown through accretion from less massive seeds in the early universe. The molecules CO and H2 can be used to trace this…
The early evolution of the quasar luminosity function (QLF) and black hole mass function (BHMF) encodes key information on the physics determining the radiative and accretion processes of supermassive black holes (BHs) in high-$z$ quasars.…
Luminous distant quasars are unique probes of the high redshift intergalactic medium (IGM) and of the growth of massive galaxies and black holes in the early universe. Absorption due to neutral Hydrogen in the IGM makes quasars beyond a…
We make black hole (BH) merger trees from Millennium and Millennium-II simulations to find under what conditions 10^9Msun SMBH can form by redshift z=7. In order to exploit both: large box size in the Millennium simulation; and large mass…