Related papers: Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei
Massive black holes (BHs) are at once exotic and yet ubiquitous, residing in the centers of massive galaxies in the local Universe. Recent years have seen remarkable advances in our understanding of how these BHs form and grow over cosmic…
Supermassive black holes in the nuclei of active galaxies expel large amounts of matter through powerful winds of ionized gas. The archetypal active galaxy NGC 5548 has been studied for decades, and high-resolution X-ray and UV observations…
Active galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their center, which grows by accreting matter from the surrounding galaxy. The accretion process in the central ~10 parsecs has not been directly resolved in previous observations, due to…
Growing supermassive black holes (Active Galactic Nuclei; AGN) release energy with the potential to alter their host galaxies and larger-scale environment; a process named "AGN feedback". Feedback is a required component of galaxy formation…
I present here an heterogeneous selection of nearby galaxies in which inner density waves (bars, spirals, m=1 modes) have been observed, and which are presumed to host a supermassive black hole, to illustrate the importance of such inner…
The consequences of nuclear black holes for the structure and dynamics of stellar spheroids are reviewed. Slow growth of a black hole in a pre-existing core produces a steep power-law density profile similar to the cusps seen in faint…
A variety of observational approaches have provided evidence for extended halos of dark matter surrounding elliptical galaxies, and for massive dark objects in (some of) their nuclei. What are the properties of the dark halos? How do they…
Nuclear spirals can provide a wealth of information about the nuclear potential in disc galaxies. They form naturally as a gas response to non-axisymmetry in the gravitational potential, even if the degree of this asymmetry is very small.…
The material surrounding accreting supermassive black holes connects the active galactic nucleus (AGN) with its host galaxy and, besides being responsible for feeding the black hole, provides important information on the feedback that…
Massive black holes are ubiquitous, occurring at the centres of all massive galaxies and possibly many low mass ones. They are no ornament which just happens to be there, but play a role vital to the growth and structure of the host galaxy.…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are accreting supermassive black holes co-evolving with their host galaxies through a complex interplay of feeding and feedback. In this chapter, we first discuss AGN fuelling in galaxies, both in interacting…
Rapid formation of supermassive black holes occurs in dense nuclear star clusters that are initially gas-dominated. Stellar-mass black hole remnants of the most massive cluster sink into the core, where a massive runaway black hole forms as…
An introduction is given to a meeting on the role of massive and stellar black holes in powering non-thermal activity in a rich variety of cosmic sources. Relevant properties of magnetized, spinning black holes are summarized and their…
Observationally established correlations between black hole mass and host galaxy structural/dynamical properties (like the M_BH - sigma relation) give support to the idea of an intimate link between the growth of black holes (BHs) and their…
Beyond all reasonable doubt, black holes are commonly found in the nuclei of most normal galaxies. In recent years, dynamical measurements of hole masses have transformed the study of their functioning and evolution. In particular, relating…
Recent work on the dynamical evolution of galactic nuclei containing supermassive black holes is reviewed. Topics include galaxy structural properties; collisionless and collisional equilibria; loss-cone dynamics; and dynamics of binary and…
The hypothesis that dark matter is converted into visible particles in active galactic nuclei is investigated. If dark matter consists of stable superheavy neutral particles and active galactic nuclei are rotating black holes, then, due to…
The central regions of galaxies show the presence of massive black holes and/or dense stellar systems. The question about their modes of formation is still under debate. A likely explanation of the formation of the central dense stellar…
Supermassive binary black holes and their influence on the structure and evolution of galaxies is reviewed.
Our understanding of the cosmic evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) has been revolutionized by the advent of large multiwavelength extragalactic surveys, which have enabled detailed statistical studies of the host galaxies and…