Related papers: Evolution of massive black hole spins
We show that the rapid formation of super-massive black holes in quasars can indeed be understood in terms of major galaxy mergers followed by disk accretion. The necessary short disk evolution time can be achieved provided the disk…
Supermassive black holes are nowadays believed to reside in most local galaxies. Observations have revealed us vast information on the population of local and distant black holes, but the detailed physical properties of these dark massive…
We consider the consequences of gravitational wave recoil for unified models of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Spatial oscillations of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) around the cores of galaxies following gravitational wave (GW) recoil…
As a black hole in a binary spirals in gradually from large separation, energy and angular momentum flow not only to infinity but also into or out of the hole. In addition, the hole's horizon area increases slowly during this process. In…
We review recent progress in studying accretion flows on to supermassive black holes (SMBH). Much of this removes earlier assumptions of symmetry and regularity, such as aligned and prograde disc rotation. This allows a much richer variety…
We compare all the available observational data on the redshift evolution of the total stellar mass and star formation rate density in the Universe with the mass and accretion rate density evolution of supermassive black holes, estimated…
The radiation of linear momentum imparts a recoil (or "kick") to the center of mass of a merging black hole binary system. Recent numerical relativity calculations have shown that eccentricity can lead to an approximate 25% increase in…
The comparison of the black hole mass function (BHMF) of active galactic nuclei (AGN) relics with the measured mass function of the massive black holes in galaxies provides strong evidence for the growth of massive black holes being…
Under the assumption that jets in active galactic nuclei are powered by accretion and the spin of the central supermassive black hole, we are able to reproduce the radio luminosity functions of high- and low-excitation galaxies.…
The Sloan Digital Sky survey detected luminous quasars at very high redshift, z>6. Follow-up observations indicated that at least some of these quasars are powered by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses in excess of billion solar…
A circumbinary disc around a pair of merging stellar-mass black holes may be shocked and heated during the recoil of the merged hole, causing a near-simultaneous electromagnetic counterpart to the gravitational wave event. The shocks occur…
Numerical-relativity simulations indicate that the black hole produced in a binary merger can recoil with a velocity up to v_max ~ 4,000 km/s with respect to the center of mass of the initial binary. This challenges the paradigm that most…
The long-term evolution of massive black hole binaries at the centers of galaxies is studied in a variety of physical regimes, with the aim of resolving the ``final parsec problem,'' i.e., how black hole binaries manage to shrink to…
Mergers of black-hole binaries are expected to release large amounts of energy in the form of gravitational radiation. However, binary evolution models predict merger rates too low to be of observational interest. In this paper we explore…
We report and comment upon the principal results of an investigation into the evolution of rotating black holes emitting massless scalar radiation via the Hawking process. It is demonstrated that a Kerr black hole evaporating by the…
At low redshift, massive black holes are found in the centers of almost all large elliptical galaxies, and also in many lower-mass systems. Their evolution is believed to be inextricably entangled with that of their host galaxies. On the…
Since a black hole does not emit light from its interior, nor does it have a surface on which light from nearby sources can be reflected, observational study of black hole physics requires observing the gravitational impact of the black…
Generic black hole binaries radiate gravitational waves anisotropically, imparting a recoil, or kick, velocity to the merger remnant. If a component of the kick along the line of sight is present, gravitational waves emitted during the…
The vast majority of massive binary systems in the universe is evidently unsuited to produce merging binary black holes. However, several narrow evolutionary paths of isolated massive binaries towards this goal have recently been…
Circumbinary accretion occurs throughout the universe, from the formation of stars and planets to the aftermath of major galactic mergers. We present an extensive investigation of circumbinary accretion disks, studying circular binaries…