Related papers: Major Galaxy Mergers Only Trigger the Most Luminou…
It is now widely believed that the growth of massive black holes is closely linked to the formation of galaxies, but there have been few concrete constraints on the actual physical processes responsible for this coupling. Investigating the…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powered by accretion disks onto supermassive black holes in the the centers of galaxies. AGN are believed to play important roles in the evolution of both supermassive black holes and their host galaxies…
Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) embedded in active galactic nuclei (AGN) may be major sources of astrophysical gravitational waves (GWs), contributing both to the observed LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA population of binary BH mergers and to future…
The role of galaxy mergers in fueling active galactic nuclei (AGN) is still debated, owing partly to selection effects inherent to studies of the merger/AGN connection. In particular, luminous AGN are often heavily obscured in late-stage…
We present results of the cross-correlation analysis between active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and galaxies at redshift 0.1-1. We obtain data of ~10,000 SDSS AGNs in which their virial masses with a super-massive black hole (SMBH) were…
The build up of heavy elements and the stellar mass assembly are fundamental processes in the formation and evolution of galaxies. Although they have been extensively studied through observations and simulations, the key elements that…
Several observational studies and numerical simulations suggest that mergers must contribute to the evolution of galaxies; however, the role that they play is not yet fully understood. In this paper we study a sample of 52 double nucleus…
Nuclear activity in galaxies is closely connected to galactic mergers and supermassive black holes (SBH). Galactic mergers perturb substantially the dynamics of gas and stellar population in the merging galaxies, and they are expected to…
The growth of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies are thought to be linked, but the precise nature of this symbiotic relationship is still poorly understood. Both observations and simulations of galaxy formation suggest that…
We use the clustering of galaxies around distant AGN to show with ~90% confidence that fainter AGN are longer lived. Our argument is simple: since the measured galaxy-AGN cross-correlation length r_0 ~ 5h^-1 Mpc does not vary significantly…
We use morphological information of X-ray selected AGN hosts to set limits on the fraction of the accretion density of the Universe at z~1 that is not likely to be associated with major mergers. Deep X-ray observations are combined with…
The origin of the mass scaling relation between supermassive black holes (SMBHs, $M_{\rm BH}$) and galaxies ($M_*$) remains a key open question. Rather than invoking AGN feedback, a non-causal mechanism has been proposed in which multiple…
We are undertaking the first systematic study of the prevalence of AGN activity in a large sample of high redshift galaxy clusters. Local clusters contain mainly red elliptical galaxies, and have little or no luminous AGN activity. However,…
Supermassive black hole (SMBH) coalescence in galaxy mergers is believed to be one of the primary sources of very low frequency gravitational waves (GWs). Significant contribution of the GWs comes from mergers of massive galaxies with…
The origin of the black hole mergers detected by LIGO and Virgo remains an open question. While the unusual mass and spin of a few events constrain their possible astrophysical formation mechanisms, it is difficult to classify the bulk of…
We use a simple model of spheroid formation to explore the relationship between the creation of stars and dust in a massive proto galaxy and the growth of its central black hole. This model predicts that sub-mm luminosity peaks after only ~…
We present the study of an X-ray selected sample of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in pairs at projected spatial separations 1 <$ r_p$/kpc < 100 at z < 0.1, using XMM-Newton and Chandra data. The pair sample is derived from an initial pool of…
Kpc-scale dual and offset Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) are signposts of accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) triggered during late-stage galaxy mergers, offering crucial insights into the coevolution of SMBHs and galaxies. However,…
We study stellar and black hole mass assembly in a sample of 42 infrared-luminous galaxy mergers at z<0.3 by combining results from radiative transfer modelling with archival measures of molecular gas and black hole mass. The ratios of…
The correlation between active galactic nuclei (AGN) and environment provides important clues to AGN fueling and the relationship of black hole growth to galaxy evolution. In this paper, we analyze the fraction of galaxies in clusters…