Related papers: Massive black holes in galactic nuclei: Theory and…
Gravitational waves (GWs) have provided a new lens through which to view the universe beyond traditional electromagnetic methods. The upcoming space-based gravitational wave mission, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), will give us…
While until recently they were often considered as exotic objects of dubious existence, in the last decades there have been overwhelming observational evidences for the presence of stellar mass black holes in binary systems, supermassive…
A brief survey is presented of new science that will emerge during the decades ahead from direct detection of gravitational radiation. Interferometers on earth and in space will probe the universe in an entirely new way by directly sensing…
The grand challenges of contemporary fundamental physics---dark matter, dark energy, vacuum energy, inflation and early universe cosmology, singularities and the hierarchy problem---all involve gravity as a key component. And of all…
The tight relationship between the masses of black holes and galaxy spheroids in nearby galaxies implies a causal connection between the growth of these two components. Optically luminous quasars host the most prodigious accreting black…
The large-scale structure of the Universe formed from initially small perturbations in the cosmic density field, leading to galaxy clusters with up to 10^15 Msun at the present day. Here, we review the formation of structures in the…
The relationship between galaxies and supermassive black holes (SMBH) found in their cores plays a key role in the formation and evolution of both of these major constituents of the universe, as well as the evolution of the intergalactic…
We explore the consequences of a novel but increasingly well-supported hypothesis that supermassive black holes may have formed from primordial black holes form ed prior to, and rapidly growing in, the radiation-dominated universe. We show…
The assembly of massive black holes in the early universe remains a poorly constrained open question in astrophysics. The merger and accretion of light seeds (remnants of Population III stars with mass below $\sim 1000M_{\odot}$) or heavy…
Our understanding of space and time is probed to its depths by black holes. These objects, which appear as a natural consequence of general relativity, provide a powerful analytical tool able to examine macroscopic and microscopic…
In the early Universe, while galaxies were still forming, black holes as massive as a billion solar masses powered quasars. Supermassive black holes are found at the centers of most galaxies today, where their masses are related to the…
Over the next decade, third-generation interferometers and the space-based LISA mission will observe binaries in galactic centers involving supermassive black holes with millions of solar masses. More precise measurements of more extreme…
Black holes are perhaps the most strange and fascinating objects known to exist in the universe. Our understanding of space and time is pushed to its limits by the extreme conditions found in these objects. They can be used as natural…
We make use of the first high--resolution hydrodynamic simulations of structure formation which self-consistently follows the build up of supermassive black holes introduced in Di Matteo et al. (2007) to investigate the relation between…
Observations of gravitational waves provide new opportunities to study our Universe. In particular, mergers of stellar black holes are the main targets of the current gravitational wave experiments. In order to make accurate predictions, it…
Space based gravitational wave astronomy will open a completely new window on the Universe and massive black holes binaries are expected to be among the primary actors on this upcoming stage. The New Gravitational-wave Observatory (NGO) is…
Observations of the most luminous quasars at redshift z>6 reveal the existence of numerous supermasssive black holes (>10^9 Msun) already in place about twelve billion years ago. In addition, the interstellar medium of the galaxies hosting…
We consider the possibility that the majority of dark matter in our Universe consists of black holes of primordial origin. We determine the conditions under which such black holes may have originated from a single-field model of inflation…
The gravitational waves generated in the coalescence of massive binary black holes will be measurable by LISA to enormous distances. Redshifts z~10 or larger (depending somewhat on the mass of the binary) can potentially be probed by such…
Supermassive black holes are a key element in our understanding of how galaxies form. Most of the progress in this very active field of research is based on just ~30 determinations of black hole mass, accumulated over the past decade. We…