Related papers: A Monster in the early Universe
Recent astronomical data on Black hole observations are reviewed. The arguments in favor that the observed black holes are predominantly primordial (PBH) are presented. The mass spectrum of PBH is best fit to the log-normal one. A model of…
Supermassive black holes underwent periods of exponential growth during which we seem them as quasars in the distant Universe. The summed emission from these quasars generates the cosmic X-ray background, the spectrum of which has been used…
Aspects of primordial black holes, i.e. black holes formed in the early Universe, are reviewed. Special emphasis is put on their formation, their role as dark matter candidates and their manifold signatures, particularly through…
Compact relativistic stars allow us to study the nature of matter under extreme conditions, probing regions of parameter space that are otherwise inaccessible. Nuclear theory in this regime is not well constrained: one key issue is whether…
The deepest and clearest maps yet of the Universe's skeleton of dark matter structure present a picture broadly in concord with favoured models - although puzzling discrepancies remain.
Half a century after their discovery, the study of quasars remains one of the most fascinating intellectual challenges in astronomy. Quasars are laboratories for everything from relativity to magnetohydrodynamics and are perhaps the best…
The large observed redshift of quasars has suggested large cosmological distances and a corresponding enormous energy output to explain the brightness or luminosity as seen at earth. Alternative or complementary sources of redshift have not…
Massive black holes are fundamental constituents of our cosmos, from the Big Bang to today. Understanding their formation from cosmic dawn, their growth, and the emergence of the first, rare quasars in the early Universe remains one of our…
One of the milestones in the cosmic history is the formation of the first luminous objects and Hydrogen reionization. The standard theory of cosmic structure formation predicts that the first generation of stars were born about a few…
Although dust emission at cosmological distances has only been detected a little more than a decade ago, remarkable progress has been achieved since then in characterizing the far-infrared emission of high-redshift systems. The mere fact…
Dark matter could be composed by black-hole remnants formed before the big-bang era in a bouncing cosmology. This hypothetical scenario has major implications on the issue of the arrow of time: it would upset a common attribution of past…
Quasars, powered by gas accretion onto supermassive black holes, rank among the most energetic objects of the Universe. While they are thought to be ignited by galaxy mergers and affect the surrounding gas, observational constraints on both…
The SNe type Ia data admit that the Universe today may be dominated by some exotic matter with negative pressure violating all energy conditions. Such exotic matter is called {\it phantom matter} due to the anomalies connected with…
Protoclusters, the progenitors of galaxy clusters, trace large scale structures in the early Universe and are important to our understanding of structure formation and galaxy evolution. To date, only a handful of protoclusters have been…
The uncharted territory of the high-redshift ($z\gtrsim3$) Universe holds the key to understand the evolution of quasars. In an attempt to identify the most extreme members of the quasar population, i.e., blazars, we have carried out a…
The entropies of the known entities in the universe add to a total which is some twenty orders of magnitude below the holographic limit. Based on an assumption that the entropies should saturate the limit, we suggest that there exists dark…
Quasars at z>4 provide direct information on the first massive structures to form in the Universe. Recent ground-based optical surveys (e.g., the Sloan Digital Sky Survey) have discovered large numbers of high-redshift quasars, increasing…
Recent observations have shown that, only a billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe was already lit up by bright quasars fuelled by the infall of gas onto supermassive black holes. The masses of these early black holes are inferred…
Understanding the formation and evolution of the first stars and galaxies represents one of the most exciting frontiers in astronomy. Since the universe was filled with neutral hydrogen at early times, the most promising method for…
The tight relationship between the masses of black holes and galaxy spheroids in nearby galaxies implies a causal connection between the growth of these two components. Optically luminous quasars host the most prodigious accreting black…