Related papers: Using Megamaser Disks to Probe Black Hole Accretio…

A solid theoretical understanding of how inflowing, accreting plasma around black holes and other compact objects gives rise to outflowing winds and jets is still lacking, despite decades of observations. The fact that similar processes and…

The scaling relations between supermassive black holes and their host galaxy properties are of fundamental importance in the context black hole-host galaxy co-evolution throughout cosmic time. In this work, we use a novel algorithm that…

Correlations between the mass of a supermassive black hole and the properties of its host galaxy (e.g., total stellar mass (M*), luminosity (Lhost)) suggest an evolutionary connection. A powerful test of a co-evolution scenario is to…

We use the microlensing variability observed for eleven gravitationally lensed quasars to show that the accretion disk size at a rest-frame wavelength of 2500 Angstroms is related to the black hole mass by log(R_{2500}/cm)=(15.78\pm0.12) +…

We report the detection of the 1.3 mm continuum and the molecular emission of the disks of the young triple system SR24 by analyzing ALMA (The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimter Array) subarcsecond archival observations. We estimate the…

Spins play a crucial role in the appearance, evolution, and occupation fraction of massive black holes (MBHs). To date, observational estimates of MBH spins are scarce, and the assumptions commonly made in such estimates have recently been…

We present measurements of the cool molecular gas mass around the nuclei of two gas-rich mergers, III Zw 035 and IRAS F01364-1042, whose enclosed masses (M$_\mathrm{enc}$) within the central 40-80 pc would be overmassive if attributed…

Several detections of wide-orbit planet-mass/sub-stellar companions around young solar-like stars were reported in the last decade. The origin of those possible planets is still unclear but accretion tracers and VLT/SPHERE observations…

We put active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with low-mass black holes on the fundamental plane of black hole accretion---the plane that relates X-ray emission, radio emission, and mass of an accreting black hole---to test whether or not the…

Naturally occurring water vapor maser emission at 1.35 cm wavelength provides an accurate probe for the study of accretion disks around highly compact objects, thought to be black holes, in the centers of active galaxies. Because of the…

Asymmetrical features in disks provide indirect evidences of embedded objects, such as planets. Observed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the circumstellar disk in MWC 758 traced with thermal dust continuum…

The active galactic nucleus (AGN) accretion disks are ideal sites for hierarchical black hole (BH) mergers. To robustly probe such a possibility, we analyze binary black hole mergers in the GWTC-4 with a flexible mixture population model…

We study the connection between the large-scale dynamics and the gas fueling toward a central black hole via the analysis of a Milky Way-like simulation at sub-parsec resolution. This allows us to follow a set of processes at various scales…

Determining the black hole masses in active galactic nuclei (AGN) is of crucial importance to constrain the basic characteristics of their central engines and shed light on their growth and co-evolution with their host galaxies. While the…

Stellar evolution predicts the existence of a mass gap for black hole remnants produced by pair-instability supernova dynamics, whose lower and upper edges are very uncertain. We study the possibility of constraining the location of the…

We present near- and mid-infrared (IR) broadband imaging observations of the edge-on protoplanetary disk around HH 30 with the James Webb Space Telescope/Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). We combine these…

Hierarchical structure formation inevitably leads to the formation of supermassive binary black holes (BBHs) with a sub-parsec separation in galactic nuclei. However, to date there has been no unambiguous detection of such systems. In an…

Estimating black hole masses of blazars is still a big challenge. Because of the contamination of jets, using the previously suggested size -- continuum luminosity relation can overestimate the broad line region (BLR) size and black hole…

The scale radius of dark matter halos is a critical parameter for specifying the density distribution of dark matter, and is therefore a fundamental parameter for modeling galaxies. We develop here a novel, observationally motivated probe…

We are undertaking a large survey of over thirty disks using the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) to see whether the observed dust structures match spectral energy distribution (SED) predictions and have any correlation with stellar properties.…