Related papers: Illuminating black hole subsystems in young star c…
We present general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of merging equal-mass, spinning black holes embedded in an equatorial thin slab of magnetized gas. We evolve black holes either non-spinning, with spins aligned to the orbital…
The growth of supermassive black holes by merging and accretion in hierarchical models of galaxy formation is studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. A tight linear relation between masses of black holes and masses of bulges arises if…
With the goal of providing more accurate and realistic estimates of the secular behavior of the mass accretion and drag rates in the "common-envelope" scenario encountered when a black hole or a neutron star moves in the stellar envelope of…
We build an evolution model of the central black hole that depends on the processes of gas accretion, the capture of stars, mergers as well as electromagnetic torque. In case of gas accretion in the presence of cooling sources, the flow is…
Interacting galaxies often have complexes of hundreds of young stellar clusters of individual masses $\sim 10^{4-6}~M_\odot$ in regions that are a few hundred parsecs across. These cluster complexes interact dynamically, and their…
We make use of two suits of ultra high resolution N-body simulations of individual dark matter haloes from the Phoenix and the Aquarius Projects to investigate systematics of assembly history of subhaloes in dark matter haloes differing by…
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…
I outline the theory of accretion onto black holes, and its application to observed phenomena such as X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, tidal disruption events, and gamma-ray bursts. The dynamics as well as radiative signatures of…
We present a novel self-consistent theoretical framework to characterize the formation, evolution, and merger sites of dynamically-formed black hole binaries, with a focus on explaining the most massive events observed by the…
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 show that the luminosity function of the actively star-forming Lyman break galaxies and the B-band quasar luminosity function at $z = 3$ can be fit reasonably well with the mass function of collapsed galaxy scale dark matter haloes…
In recent years, the formation and evolution of rapidly accreting supermassive stars has received significant attention in the hope of better understanding the origin of high redshift quasars. It is often taken for granted that once formed,…
Accreting black holes tend to display a characteristic dark central region called the black-hole shadow, which depends only on spacetime/observer geometry and which conveys information about the black hole's mass and spin. Conversely, the…
Galaxies often contain large reservoirs of molecular gas which shape their evolution. This can be through cooling of the gas -- which leads to star formation, or accretion onto the central supermassive black hole -- which fuels AGN activity…
At low redshift, massive black holes are found in the centers of almost all large elliptical galaxies, and also in many lower-mass systems. Their evolution is believed to be inextricably entangled with that of their host galaxies. On the…
We demonstrate that gas disks around binary systems might deliver gas to the binary components only when the circumbinary disk is relatively warm. We present new grid-based hydrodynamics simulations, performed with the binary on the grid…
The radio emission from supermassive black holes in nearby early-type galaxies can be used to test possible explanations for their low luminosities. We calculate the expected contribution from thermal synchrotron emission from hot accretion…
The sheer range of scales in the Universe makes it impossible to model all at once. It is necessary, therefore, when conducting numerical experiments, that we employ sub-resolution prescriptions that can represent the scales we are unable…
We derive the mass function of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) over the redshift range 0<z<2, using the latest deep luminosity and mass functions of field galaxies. Applying this mass function, combined with the bolometric luminosity…
Proto-stellar clusters, likely progenitors of globular clusters, are compact with typical mass $\sim 10^6\,{\rm M}_\odot$ and size $\sim 1\,{\rm pc}$, as revealed recently by JWST observations at $z\sim 10$. Sufficiently high compactness…