Related papers: Rapidly spinning massive black holes in active gal…
I present results from numerical simulations of gas dynamics outside luminous accretion disks in active galactic nuclei. The gas, gravitationally captured by a super massive black hole, can be driven away by the energy and momentum of the…
We try to identify the sources and systematics of the uncertainty of the masses of the central black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) which have been obtained by reverberation-mapping methods. We characterize the broad H$\beta$…
Super-Eddington accretion is very efficient in growing the mass of a black hole: in a fraction of the Eddington time its mass can grow to an arbitrary large value if the feedback effect is not taken into account. However, since…
We present discovery observations of a quasar in the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (CFHQS) at redshift z=6.44. We also use near-IR spectroscopy of nine CFHQS quasars at z~6 to determine black hole masses. These are compared with…
Accretion disks around active galactic nuclei are potentially unstable to star formation at large radii. We note that when the compact objects formed from some of these stars spiral into the central supermassive black hole, there is no…
We investigate the conjecture by Sikora, Stawarz & Lasota (2007) that the observed AGN--radio-loudness bimodality can be explained by the morphology-related bimodality of black-hole spin distribution in the centers of galaxies: central…
This paper, the second of a series on radiation-regulated accretion onto black holes (BHs) from galactic scales, focuses on the effects of radiation pressure and angular momentum of the accreting gas. We simulate accretion onto…
Eddington ratio is a paramount parameter governing the accretion history and life cycles of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). This short review presents a multi-faceted view of the importance of the Eddington ratio spanning varied AGN studies.…
The accretion efficiency for individual black holes is very difficult to determine accurately. There are many factors that can influence each step of the calculation, such as the dust and host galaxy contribution to the observed luminosity,…
We present a new implementation of the GAlaxy Evolution and Assembly (GAEA) semi-analytic model, that features an improved modelling of the process of cold gas accretion onto supermassive black hole (SMBHs), derived from both analytic…
The observational evidence that Super-Massive Black Holes ($M_{\bullet} \sim 10^{9-10} \, \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$) are already in place less than $1 \, \mathrm{Gyr}$ after the Big Bang poses stringent time constraints on the growth efficiency…
We use a combination of a cosmological N-body simulation of the concordance Lambda cold dark matter (LCDM) paradigm and a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation to investigate the spin development of central supermassive black holes (BHs)…
The cosmic history of supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth is important for understanding galaxy evolution, reionization and the physics of accretion. Recent NuSTAR, Swift-BAT and \textit{Chandra} hard X-ray surveys have provided new…
Using a simple description of feedback from black hole (BH) growth, we develop an analytic model for the fueling of Seyferts (low-luminosity AGN) and their relation to their host galaxies, Eddington ratio distributions, and cosmological…
X-ray reflection features observed from the innermost regions of accretion disks in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) allow important tests of accretion theory. In recent years it has been possible to use the Fe K line and reflection continuum…
I present a new method to unveil the history of cosmic accretion and the build-up of SMBH in the nuclei of galaxies, based on observations of the evolving radio and (hard) X-ray luminosity functions of AGN. The fundamental plane of black…
Gas accretion of embedded stellar-mass black holes\,(sBHs) or stars in the accretion disk of active galactic nuclei\,(AGNs) will modify the mass distribution of these sBHs and stars, which will also affect the migration of the sBHs/stars.…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at redshifts of $z\gtrsim 4-7$, many of which host accreting massive black holes (BHs) with BH-to-galaxy mass ($M_{\rm BH}/M_{\star}$) ratios…
We use hydrodynamical simulations to study the color transformations induced by star formation and active galactic nuclei (AGN) during major mergers of spiral galaxies. Our modeling accounts for radiative cooling, star formation, and…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) probably control the growth of their host galaxies via feedback in the form of wide-angle wind-driven outflows. These establish the observed correlations between supermassive black hole (SMBH) masses and host…