Related papers: Revisiting Soltan's argument based on a semi-analy…
We study the growth of supermassive black holes accounting for both accretion and mergers. The former is informed by observations of the quasar luminosity function (QLF) and the latter by the gravitational wave-background (GWB) recently…
We study a model in which supermassive black holes (SMBHs) can grow by the combined action of gas accretion on heavy seeds and mergers of both heavy (m_s^h=10^5 Msol) and light (m_s^l = 10^2 Msol) seeds. The former result from the direct…
Feedback from energy liberated by gas accretion onto black holes (BHs) is an attractive mechanism to explain the exponential cut-off at the massive end of the galaxy stellar mass function (SMF). Semi-analytic models of galaxy formation in…
We consider super-critical accretion with angular momentum onto stellar-mass black holes as a possible mechanism for growing billion-solar-mass holes from light seeds at early times. We use the radiatively-inefficient "slim disk" solution…
We identify a physical mechanism that would have resulted in rapid, obscured growth of seed super-massive black-holes in galaxies at z>6. Specifically, we find that the density at the centre of typical high redshift galaxies was at a level…
The cosmological evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is important for understanding the mechanism of accretion onto supermassive black holes, and the related evolution of the host galaxy. In this work, we include objects with very low…
The largest observed supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have a mass of M_BH ~ 10^{10} M_sun, nearly independent of redshift, from the local (z~0) to the early (z>6) Universe. We suggest that the growth of SMBHs above a few 10^{10} M_sun is…
We consider the distribution of local supermassive black hole Eddington ratios and accretion rates, accounting for the dependence of radiative efficiency and bolometric corrections on the accretion rate. We find that black hole mass growth,…
We perform the first three-dimensional radiation hydrodynamical simulations that investigate the growth of intermediate-mass BHs (IMBHs) embedded in massive self-gravitating, dusty nuclear accretion disks. We explore the dependence of mass…
Evidence for dust around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the early Universe is strongly suggested by recent observations. However, the accretion mechanism of SMBHs in dusty gas is not well understood yet. We investigate the growth of…
We use the Delphi semi-analytic model to study the mass assembly and properties of high-redshift ($z>4$) black holes over a wide mass range, $10^3 < M_{bh}/M_\odot < 10^{10}$. Our black hole growth implementation includes a critical halo…
Using X-ray stacking analyses we estimate the average amounts of supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth taking place in star-forming galaxies (SFGs) at z~1 and z~2 as a function of galaxy stellar mass (M*). We find the average SMBH growth…
We summarize results from a survey of radiation-dominated black hole accretion flows across a wide range of mass accretion rates, as well as two values of black hole spin and initial magnetic field geometry. These models apply an algorithm…
We present the black hole mass--bulge velocity dispersion relation for a complete sample of 75 soft X-ray selected AGNs. We find that the AGNs with highest accretion rates relative to Eddington lie below the \mbh--\sig\ relation of broad…
We study the long-term evolution of the global structure of axisymmetric accretion flows onto a black hole (BH) at rates substantially higher than the Eddington value ($\dot{M}_{\rm Edd}$), performing two-dimensional hydrodynamical…
Understanding the formation and growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at high redshift represents a major challenge for theoretical models. In this work we investigate the early evolution of the first SMBHs by constraining their…
The vast amount of energy released by active galactic nuclei (AGN) is increasingly recognized as a key driver of evolution not only in massive galaxies and clusters, but also in low-mass dwarf galaxies. Despite this, their role in the early…
The evolution of the luminosity function (LF) of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) at $z \gtrsim 5$ represents a key constraint to understand their contribution to the ionizing photon budget necessary to trigger the last phase transition in the…
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…
We review and discuss theoretical studies addressing the possibility of gas accretion onto black holes occurring at rates exceeding the Eddington limit. Our focus is on the applications to the growth of black hole seeds at high redshift. We…