Related papers: The evolution of AGN across cosmic time: what is d…
Recent systematic searches for massive black holes (BHs) in local dwarf galaxies led to the discovery of a population of faint Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). We investigate the agreement of the BH and AGN populations in the Illustris, TNG,…
In order to study the evolution of the relative fraction of obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) we constructed the largest sample to date of AGN selected in hard X-rays. The full sample contains 2341 X-ray-selected AGN, roughly 4 times…
We explore the connections between the evolving galaxy and AGN populations. We present a simple phenomenological model that links the evolving galaxy mass function and the evolving quasar luminosity function, which makes specific and…
It is still a matter of intense debate how supermassive black holes (SMBH) grow, and the role played by feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the co-evolution of SMBHs and galaxies. To test the coevolution proposed by theoretical…
The tight correlations between the masses of supermassive black holes (BHs) and the properties of their host galaxies suggest that BHs coevolve with galaxies. However, what is the link between BH mass ($M_{\rm BH}$) and the properties of…
It is well established that a dominant phase in the growth of massive galaxies occurred at high redshift and was heavily obscured by gas and dust. Many studies have explored the stellar growth of massive galaxies but few have combined these…
This paper explores the role of small-scale environment ($<1$ Mpc) in modulating accretion events onto supermassive black holes by studying the incidence of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in massive clusters of galaxies. A flexible,…
[Abriged] Supermassive black holes (SMBH) lurk in the nuclei of most massive galaxies, perhaps in all of them. The tight observed scaling relations between SMBH masses and structural properties of their host spheroids likely indicate that…
Supermassive Black Holes (BHs) are known to efficiently grow through gas accretion, but even sustained and intense mass build-up through this mechanism struggles to explain the assembly of the most massive BHs observed in the local…
It is widely reported, based on clustering measurements of observed active galactic nuclei (AGN) samples, that AGN reside in similar mass host dark matter halos across the bulk of cosmic time, with log $M/M_\odot$~12.5-13.0 to z~2.5. We…
We use deep Chandra X-ray imaging to measure the distribution of specific black hole accretion rates ($L_X$ relative to the stellar mass of the galaxy) and thus trace AGN activity within star-forming and quiescent galaxies, as a function of…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has unveiled numerous massive black holes (BHs) in faint, broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The discovery highlights the presence of dust-reddened AGN populations, referred to as "little red…
We develop semi-empirical models of the supermassive black hole and active galactic nucleus (AGN) populations, which incorporate the black hole growth implied by the observed AGN luminosity function assuming a radiative efficiency \epsilon,…
I will describe the constraints available from a study of AGN evolution synthesis models on the growth of the supermassive black holes (SMBH) population in the two main 'modes' observed (kinetic- and radiatively-dominated, respectively). I…
Intrinsic absorption is a fundamental physical property to understand the evolution of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Here a sample of 1290 AGN, selected in the 2-10 keV band from different flux-limited surveys with very high optical…
We have selected a sample of X-ray emitting active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in low-mass host galaxies (5e9-2e10 Msun) out to z~1. By comparing to AGNs in more massive hosts, we have found that the AGN spatial number density and the fraction…
We argue that supermassive black hole growth in AGN occurs via sequences of randomly--oriented accretion discs with angular momentum limited by self--gravity. These stably co-- or counter--align with the black hole spin with almost equal…
Recent observations have indicated that a large fraction of the low to intermediate luminosity AGN population lives in disk-dominated hosts, while the more luminous quasars live in bulge-dominated hosts, in conflict with some previous model…
Using a semi analytic model for galaxy formation we investigate the effects of Black Hole accretion triggered by disk instabilities (DI) in isolated galaxies on the evolution of AGN. Specifically, we took on, developed and expanded the…
Aims: We investigate the cosmological growth of dark halos and follow the consequences of coeval growth for the accretion history of associated supermassive black holes. Methods: The Press-Schechter approximation is used to obtain an…