Related papers: Quasar Evolution Driven by Galaxy Encounters in Hi…
Cold quasars are a rare population of luminous, unobscured quasars associated with host galaxies that have a high star formation rate. We aimed to study the host galaxies of sixty four of these cold quasars in order to probe how the…
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…
We study the evolution of the gaseous components in massive simulated galaxies and show that their early formation is fuelled by cold, low entropy gas streams. At lower redshifts of z<3 the simulated galaxies are massive enough to support…
We investigate the hypothesis that quasars formed together with the stellar populations of early-type galaxies. This hypothesis, in conjunction with the stellar ages of early-type galaxies from population synthesis models, the relation of…
(abridged) The observed properties of supermassive black holes suggest a fundamental link between their assembly and the formation of their host spheroids. We model the growth and activity of black holes in galaxies using LambdaCDM…
The mass and structural evolution of massive galaxies is one of the hottest topics in galaxy formation. This is because it may reveal invaluable insights into the still debated evolutionary processes governing the growth and assembly of…
Quasars are powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes, but the problem of the duty cycle related to the episodic activity of the black holes remains open as one of the major questions of cosmological evolution of quasars. In this…
High redshift quasars mark the locations where massive galaxies are rapidly being assembled and forming stars. There is growing evidence that quasar environments are metal-rich out to redshifts of at least five. The gas-phase metallicities…
Quasars are useful tracers of the cosmological evolution of the black hole mass - galaxy relation. We compare the expectations of Semi-Analytical Models (SAM) of galaxy evolution, to the largest available datasets of quasar host galaxies…
The origin of supermassive black holes is an open question that has been explored considering gas- and collision-based formation channels to explain the high number of quasars observed in the early Universe. According to numerical…
We show that the black hole-bulge mass scaling relations observed from the local to the high-z Universe can be largely or even entirely explained by a non-causal origin, i.e. they do not imply the need for any physically coupled growth of…
We discuss constraints on the assembly history of supermassive black holes from the observed remnant black holes in nearby galaxies and from the emission caused by accretion onto these black holes. We also summarize the results of a…
Quasars at $z \,=\, 6$ are powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes with masses $M_{\rm BH} \sim 10^9 \rm \, M_{\odot}$. Their rapid assembly requires efficient gas inflow into the galactic nucleus, sustaining black hole accretion…
We use high resolution simulations to study the formation and distribution of galaxies within a cluster which forms hierarchically. We follow both dark matter and baryonic gas which is subject to thermal pressure, shocks and radiative…
High-redshift quasars ($z\gtrsim6$), powered by black holes (BHs) with large inferred masses, imply rapid BH growth in the early Universe. The most extreme examples have inferred masses of $\sim \! 10^9\,$M$_\odot$ at $z = 7.5$ and $\sim \!…
In hierarchical models of galaxy formation, ellipticals form from the merging of disk galaxies drawn together by gravity as their surrounding dark halos coalesce. Using semi-analytic techniques, we are able to follow the merging, star…
We extend our previous work focused at $z\sim0$, studying the redshift evolution of galaxy dynamical properties using the state-of-the-art semi-analytic model GAEA: we show that the predicted size-mass relation for disky/star forming and…
Recent observations suggested that star formation quenching in galaxies is related to galaxy structure. Here we propose a new mechanism to explain the physical origin of this correlation. We assume that while quiescent galaxies are…
The evolution of galaxies is driven strongly by dynamical processes including internal instabilities, tidal interactions and mergers. The cluster environment is a useful laboratory for studying these effects. I present recent results on…
The rise and the fall of the QS population are explained in terms of massive black holes forming/accreting during the assemblage of the host galaxies, and of accretion rekindled by interactions of the host with companions in a group. We…