Related papers: Is there an upper limit to black hole masses?
We report for the first time a sample of 12 supermassive black holes (SMBHs) hosted by low-mass galaxies at cosmic noon, i.e., in a redshift range consistent with the peak of star formation history: $z \sim 1-3$. These black holes are two…
Black holes (BHs) with masses between 100 to 100,000 times the mass of the Sun ($\rm{M}_{\odot}$) are classified as intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), potentially representing a crucial link between stellar-mass and supermassive BHs.…
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are nowadays believed to reside in most local galaxies, and the available data show an empirical correlation between bulge luminosity - or stellar velocity dispersion - and black hole mass, suggesting a…
Intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) are an (as yet) elusive class of black holes that are expected to lie in the $10^2-10^5\,M_{\odot}$ range, between the firmly established stellar-mass black holes and ${\gtrsim}10^6\,M_{\odot}$…
We describe a model-independent integral constraint which defines an upper limit to the allowed degree of evolution in the ratio of black hole (BH) mass to host galaxy luminosity or mass, as a function of redshift. Essentially, if the…
The well-established correlations between the mass of massive black holes (BHs) in the nuclei of most studied galaxies and various global properties of their hosting galaxy lend support to the idea that dwarf galaxies and globular clusters…
Recent observations support the idea that nuclear black holes grew by gas accretion while shining as luminous quasars at high redshift, and they establish a relation of the black hole mass with the host galaxy's spheroidal stellar system.…
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are common in local galactic nuclei, and SMBHs as massive as several billion solar masses already exist at redshift z=6. These earliest SMBHs may grow by the combination of radiation-pressure-limited…
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…
Ultra-Luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are accreting black holes for which their X-ray properties have been seen to be different to the case of stellar-mass black hole binaries. For most of the cases their intrinsic energy spectra are well…
We study the demographics of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the local and high-z universe with hard X-ray luminosity functions (HXLFs) of AGNs. First, we compare the mass accretion history at z>0 with optical luminosity functions…
Observational evidence has been mounting for the existence of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs, 10^2-10^5 Msun), but observing them at all, much less constraining their masses, is very challenging. In one theorized formation channel,…
We propose a scenario for mass evolution of massive black holes (MBH) in galactic nuclei, to explain both the mass correlation of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) with the bulge and the down-sizing behavior of the active galactic nuclei.…
We investigate the possibility that present-day galaxies and their dark matter haloes contain a population of massive black holes (MBHs) that form by hierarchical merging of the black hole remnants of the first stars in the Universe. Some…
We summarize indirect empirical arguments used for estimating black hole (BH) masses in ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). The interpretation of the X-ray data is still too model-dependent to provide tight constraints, but masses <~ 100…
In order to avoid unacceptable $\mu$-distortions inconsistent with observational data on the Cosmic Microwave Background, Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) must be less massive than $10^{12} M_{\odot}$, quite closely above the highest black…
Using the result obtained in a prevoius paper, in which I found an upper limit on the region of particle creation in the vicinity of the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole, and by assuming that all the created energy will be…
Growing evidence indicate supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in a mass range of $M_{\rm BH}$$\sim 106-10^{10}M_{\odot}$ lurking in central stellar bulges of galaxies.Extensive observations reveal fairly tight power laws of $M_{\rm BH}$ versus…
(Abridged) The repeated discovery of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the centers of galactic bulges, and the discovery of relations between the SMBH mass (M) and the properties of these bulges, has been fundamental in directing our…
Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have uncovered supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses exceeding $10^6 \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ at redshifts $z > 8$, posing significant challenges to existing models of early black…