Related papers: Weighing black holes from zero to high redshift
Supermassive black hole binary mergers generate a stochastic gravitational wave background detectable by pulsar timing arrays. While the amplitude of this background is subject to significant uncertainties, the frequency dependence is a…
We present a new method for supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass measurements in Type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGN) using polarization angle across broad lines. This method gives measured masses which are in a good agreement with…
Reverberation mapping (RM) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) has been used over the past three decades to determine AGN broad-line region (BLR) sizes and central black-hole masses, and their relations with the AGN's luminosity. Until…
We present a new technique for determining an upper limit for the mass of the black hole in active galactic nuclei showing warm absorption features. The method relies on the balance of radiative and gravitational forces acting on outflowing…
As a potential mechanism to build up supermassive black holes (BHs) in a spheroidal system, we consider the radiation drag effect by bulge stars, which extracts angular momentum from interstellar gas and thus allows the gas to accrete onto…
High-accuracy black hole (BH) masses require excellent spatial resolution that is only achievable for galaxies within ~100 Mpc using present-day technology. At larger distances, BH masses are often estimated with single-epoch scaling…
Ultralight scalars emerge naturally in several motivated particle physics scenarios and are viable candidates for dark matter. While laboratory detection of such bosons is challenging, their existence in nature can be imprinted on…
Quantum black holes (BHs), thought of as an excited multilevel system, can be effectively modelled by replacing an event horizon with a partially reflective membrane. This emergent feature affects their interaction with hosting…
The process of superradiance can extract angular momentum and energy from astrophysical black holes (BHs) to populate gravitationally-bound states with an exponentially large number of light bosons. We analytically calculate superradiant…
We review a General Relativistic (GR) method to determine the black hole (BH) parameters: mass-to-distance ratio, position and recessional velocity of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) of Seyfert type, which have an accretion disk with water…
Generic extensions of the standard model predict the existence of ultralight bosonic degrees of freedom. Several ongoing experiments are aimed at detecting these particles or constraining their mass range. Here we show that massive vector…
Reverberation mapping methods have been used to measure masses in about three dozen AGNs. The consistency of the virial masses computed from line widths and time delays, the relationship between black hole mass and host-galaxy stellar bulge…
In this contribution we briefly review the reverberation mapping technique and its results for low and intermidiate luminosity AGNs. Then we present a monitoring campaign of high-luminosity high-redshift quasars which will extend these…
We describe a new approach to calculating photon trajectories and gravitational lensing effects in the strong gravitational field of the Kerr black hole. These techniques are applied to explore both the imaging and spectral properties of…
Under the hypothesis of gravitational redshift induced by the central supermassive black hole, and based on line widths and shifts of redward shifted H$\beta$ and Fe ii broad emission lines for a sample of 1973 $z<0.8$ SDSS DR5 quasars, we…
Gravitational wave observations will be excellent tools for making precise measurements of processes that occur in very strong-field regions of spacetime. Extreme mass ratio systems, formed by the capture of a stellar mass body compact by a…
We explore the relation between the linear length of radio core and the central black hole mass for a sample of radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs). An empirical relation between the size of the broad line region (BLR) and optical…
Using a compiled sample of 34 broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with measured H$\beta$ time lags from the reverberation mapping (RM) method and measured bulge stellar velocity dispersions $\sigma_*$, we calculate the virial factor…
The recent LIGO detection of gravitational waves from black-hole binaries offers the exciting possibility of testing gravitational theories in the previously inaccessible strong-field, highly relativistic regime. While the LIGO detections…
Studying how the black hole (BH) - (galaxy) bulge mass relation evolves with redshift provides valuable insights into the co-evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. However, obtaining accurate measurement of BH masses…