Related papers: Black hole growth and AGN feedback under clumpy ac…
We show that binaries of stellar-mass black holes formed inside a young protoglobular cluster, can grow rapidly inside the cluster's core by accretion of the intracluster gas, before the gas may be depleted from the core. A black hole with…
We present a clustering analysis of X-ray selected AGN by compiling X-ray samples from the literature and re-estimating the dark matter (DM) halo masses of AGN in a uniform manner. We find that moderate luminosity AGN (Lx(2-10…
The growth of supermassive black holes appears to be driven by galaxy mergers, violent merger-free processes and/or `secular' processes. In order to quantify the effects of secular evolution on black hole growth, we study a sample of active…
Disk galaxies at high redshift have been predicted to maintain high gas surface densities due to continuous feeding by intense cold streams leading to violent gravitational instability, transient features and giant clumps. Gravitational…
The first stars in the universe, forming at redshifts z>15 in minihalos with masses of order 10^6 Msun, may leave behind black holes as their remnants. These objects could conceivably serve as "seeds" for much larger black holes observed at…
Black holes are superb sources of gravitational wave signals, for example when they are born in stellar collapse. We explore the subtleties that may emerge if mass accretion events increase significantly the mass of the black hole during…
Black holes grow by accreting matter from their surroundings. However, angular momentum provides an efficient natural barrier to accretion and so only the lowest angular momentum material will be available to feed the black holes. The…
We present numerical simulations of stellar wind dynamics in the central parsec of the Galactic centre, studying in particular the accretion of gas on to Sgr A*, the super-massive black hole. Unlike our previous work, here we use…
The close neighbourhood of a supermassive black hole contains not only accreting gas and dust, but also stellar-sized objects like stars, stellar-mass black holes, neutron stars, and dust-enshrouded objects that altogether form a dense…
Understanding the relative roles of large-scale environment and internal host-galaxy processes in shaping AGN activity is essential for constraining models of black-hole growth and galaxy evolution. We investigate how the environment of…
We study in detail how massive galaxies accrete gas through cosmic time using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations from the High-z Evolution of Large and Luminous Objects (HELLO) and the Numerical Investigation of a Hundred Astrophysical…
Possible connections between central black-hole (BH) growth and host-galaxy compactness have been found observationally, which may provide insight into BH-galaxy coevolution: compact galaxies might have large amounts of gas in their centers…
We summarize what large surveys of the contemporary universe have taught us about the physics and phenomenology of the processes that link the formation and evolution of galaxies and their central supermassive black holes. We present a…
We investigate black hole-host galaxy scaling relations in cosmological simulations with a self-consistent black hole growth and feedback model. The sub-grid accretion model captures the key scalings governing angular momentum transport…
We investigate the growth of central supermassive black holes in galaxies, aiming to distinguish between gas accretion versus BH merger-driven growth modes. By performing and analysing cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of $(50 ~ {\rm…
Several processes may limit the accretion rate onto a super-massive black hole (SMBH). Two processes that are commonly considered (e.g., for sub-grid prescriptions) are Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion and the Eddington limit. A third one is…
It has long been recognised that the main obstacle to accretion of gas onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs) is large specific angular momentum. It is feared that the gas settles in a large scale disc, and that accretion would then proceed…
There is growing interest in the possible link between the growth of supermassive black holes and the effect of feedback from them on galaxy growth. There are three areas of significant uncertainty: (i) the physics of the feedback; (ii) the…
The formation of massive black holes and their coevolution with host galaxies are pivotal areas of modern astrophysics. Spherical accretion onto a central point mass serves as a foundational framework in cosmological simulations,…
We explore the question of the rapid buildup of black hole mass in the early universe employing a growing black hole mass-based determination of both jet and disk powers predicted in recent theoretical work on black hole accretion and jet…