Related papers: Low-Mass Galaxy Interactions Trigger Black Hole Ac…
Supermassive black holes (with $\mathrm{M_{BH} \sim 10^9 M_{\odot}}$) are observed in the first Gyr of the Universe, and their host galaxies are found to contain unexpectedly large amounts of dust and metals. In light of the two empirical…
We study a sample of nearby (z~0.2) low-luminosity dwarf (10^7 MSun < M* < 10^8 MSun) galaxies which have extreme (0.1 - 3 MSun/yr) star formation rates (SFRs) for this mass regime, making them plausible analogues of dwarfs at z~5.5. We…
We examine the relationship between galaxies, supermassive black holes and AGN using a sample of 22,000 narrow-emission-line AGN drawn from a a sample of 122,000 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We have studied how AGN host…
Dynamical interactions in dense star clusters could significantly influence the properties of black holes, leaving imprints on their gravitational-wave signatures. While previous studies have mostly focused on repeated black hole mergers…
Understanding how supermassive black holes (SMBHs) form in the early universe is one of the most challenging problems in astrophysics. Their high abundance in the first billion years, as observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, hints…
If primordial black holes constitute the dark matter, stars forming in dark-matter dominated environments with low velocity dispersions, such as ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, may capture a black hole at birth. The capture probability is…
The discovery of high redshift quasars represents a challenge to the origin of supermassive black holes. Here, two evolutionary scenarios are considered. The first one concerns massive black holes in the local universe, which in a large…
Supermassive Black Holes grow at the center of galaxies in consonance with them. In this review we discuss the mass feeding mechanisms that lead to this growth in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), focusing on constraints derived from…
To address the problem concerning the early formation of stars in massive galaxies, we present the results of a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation which includes a physical description of starbursts triggered by galaxy interactions.…
Black holes formed in dense star clusters, where dynamical interactions are frequent, may have fundamentally different properties than those formed through isolated stellar evolution. Theoretical models for single star evolution predict a…
Several processes in the early universe might lead to the formation of primordial black holes with different masses. These black holes would interact with the cosmic plasma through accretion and emission processes. Such interactions might…
The dynamics of black hole seeds in high redshift galaxies is key to understand their ability to grow via accretion and to pair in close binaries during galactic mergers. To properly follow the dynamics of black holes we develop a…
[Abridged] We investigate trends between the recent star formation history and black hole growth in galaxy bulges in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The galaxies lie at 0.01<z<0.07 where the fibre aperture covers only the central…
To understand the physical origin of the close connection between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, it is vital to investigate star formation properties in active galaxies. Using a large dataset of nearby type 1 active…
The transit of primordial black holes through a white dwarf causes localized heating around the trajectory of the black hole through dynamical friction. For sufficiently massive black holes, this heat can initiate runaway thermonuclear…
We explore the potential cumulative energy production of stellar mass black holes in early galaxies. Stellar mass black holes may accrete substantially from the higher density interstellar media of primordial galaxies, and their energy…
The sample of dwarf galaxies with measured central black hole masses $M$ and velocity dispersions $\sigma$ has recently doubled, and gives a close fit to the extrapolation of the $M \propto \sigma$ relation for more massive galaxies. We…
Black holes across a broad range of masses play a key role in the evolution of galaxies. The initial seeds of black holes formed at $z \sim 30$ and grew over cosmic time by gas accretion and mergers. Using observational data for quasars and…
We have investigated the gas content of a sample of several hundred AGN host galaxies at z$<$1 and compared it with a sample of inactive galaxies, matched in bins of stellar mass and redshift. Gas masses have been inferred from the dust…
The existence of supermassive black holes at high redshifts ($z\sim7$) is difficult to accommodate in standard astrophysical scenarios. It has been shown that dark matter models with a subdominant self-interacting component are able to…