Related papers: Supermassive Black Holes and Their Environments
The formation mechanism of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in general, and of $\sim 10^9\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$ SMBHs observed as luminous quasars at redshifts $z> 6$ in particular, remains an open fundamental question. The presence of such…
Observational studies have revealed a "downsizing" trend in black hole (BH) growth: the number densities of luminous AGN peak at higher redshifts than those of faint AGN. This would seem to imply that massive black holes formed before low…
There is overwhelming evidence for the presence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the centers of most nearby galaxies. The mass estimates for these remnant black holes from the stellar kinematics of local galaxies and the quasar…
High-redshift quasars ($z\gtrsim6$), powered by black holes (BHs) with large inferred masses, imply rapid BH growth in the early Universe. The most extreme examples have inferred masses of $\sim \! 10^9\,$M$_\odot$ at $z = 7.5$ and $\sim \!…
We present results from a study to determine whether relations, established in the local Universe, between the mass of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their host galaxies are in place at higher redshifts. We establish a…
Based on numerical simulations of gas-rich galaxy mergers, we discuss a model in which quasar activity is tied to the self-regulated growth of supermassive black holes in galaxies. Nuclear inflow of gas attending a galaxy collision triggers…
With detections of quasars powered by increasingly massive black holes (BHs) at increasingly early times in cosmic history over the past decade, there has been correspondingly rapid progress made on the theory of early BH formation and…
We present a series of simulations of the self--regulated growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galaxies via three different fueling mechanisms: major mergers, minor mergers, and disk instabilities. The SMBHs in all three scenarios…
We study the scaling between bulge magnitude and central black hole (BH) mass in galaxies with virial BH masses < 10^6 solar mass. Based on careful image decomposition of a snapshot Hubble Space Telescope I-band survey, we found that these…
We study the link between supermassive black hole growth and the stellar mass assembly of their host galaxies in the state-of-the-art Romulus suite of simulations. The cosmological simulations Romulus25 and RomulusC employ innovative…
Using a series of high-resolution N-body simulations of the concordance cosmology we investigate how the formation histories, shapes and angular momenta of dark-matter haloes depend on environment. We first present a classification scheme…
We compare the evolution with cosmic time of the star-formation rate per comoving volume in galaxies and of the volume emissivity by Active Galactic Nuclei, as a clue to understand the relationship between black hole accretion and the…
The recent observations of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at high redshift challenge our understanding of their formation and growth. There are different proposed pathways to form black hole (BH) seeds, such as the remnants of the first…
I begin by summarizing the evidence that there is a close relationship between the evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes. They evidently share a common fuel source, and feedback from the black hole may be needed to suppress…
We explore the growth of super-massive black holes and host galaxy bulges in the galaxy population using the Millennium Run LCDM simulation coupled with a model of galaxy formation. We find that, if galaxy mergers are the primary drivers…
The origin of the black hole (BH) binary mergers observed by LIGO-Virgo is still uncertain, as are the boundaries of the stellar BH mass function. Stellar evolution models predict a dearth of BHs both at masses $\gtrsim 50$ M$_\odot$ and…
Recent observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have suggested the existence of over-massive black holes (OMBHs) in high-redshift galaxies. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism for the formation of OMBHs, based on the…
Coevolution between supermassive black holes (BHs) and their host galaxies is universally adopted in models for galaxy formation. In the absence of feedback from active galactic nuclei, simulated massive galaxies keep forming stars in the…
There is compelling evidence that black holes (BHs) in cluster centers vigorously interact with their surroundings, indicating that any realistic model of cluster formation needs to account for these processes. Here we use high-resolution…
We track the growth and evolution of high redshift seed black holes over cosmic time. This population of massive, initial black hole seeds form at these early epochs from the direct collapse of pre-galactic gas discs. Populating dark matter…