Related papers: QSO Lifetimes
In this work we revisit the growth of small primordial black holes (PBHs) immersed in a quintessential field and/or radiation to the supermassive black hole (SMBHs) scale. We show the difficulties of scenarios in which such huge growth is…
This review presents the current state of work on QSO hosts and companions at redshifts above 1. This includes the properties of QSO host galaxies, such as size, scale length, and luminosity, and morphology, as they appear to change with…
Accretion processes in quasars and active galactic nuclei are still poorly understood, especially as far as the connection between observed spectral properties and physical parameters is concerned. Quasars show an additional degree of…
We continue our earlier studies of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in the power spectra of accreting, rapidly-rotating black holes that originate from the geometric "light echoes" of X-ray flares occurring within the black hole…
Measurements of quasar lifetimes at high redshift indicate that the earliest billion-solar-mass supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have only been active as luminous quasars for less than a million years. Recently, extended Ly$\alpha$ nebulae…
Classically, the black hole (BH) horizon is completely opaque, hiding any clues about the state and very existence of its interior. Quantum mechanically and in equilibrium, the situation is not much different: Hawking radiation will now be…
The prediction that black holes radiate due to quantum effects is often considered one of the most secure in quantum field theory in curved space-time. Yet this prediction rests on two dubious assumptions: that ordinary physics may be…
Intrinsic emission and absorption lines of QSOs provide several independent probes of the metal abundances in QSO environments. They indicate that the metallicities are typically solar or higher out to redshifts z > 4. These results support…
There is growing notion that black holes may not contain curvature singularities (and that indeed nature in general may abhor such spacetime defects). This notion could have implications on our understanding of the evolution of primordial…
We use the observed distribution of Eddington ratios as a function of supermassive black hole (BH) mass to constrain models of AGN lifetimes and lightcurves. Given the observed AGN luminosity function, a model for AGN lifetimes (time above…
Three high-redshift (z=2) and high luminosity (M_B < -28 mag for Ho = 50, qo=0.5) QSOs, two radio-quiet one radio-loud, were imaged in R, I and K bands. The luminosities, colours and sizes of the hosts overlap with those of actively…
One of the main themes in extragalactic astronomy for the next decade will be the evolution of galaxies over cosmic time. Many future observatories, including JWST, ALMA, GMT, TMT and E-ELT will intensively observe starlight over a broad…
We explore the possibility that massive black holes comprise a significant fraction of the dark matter of our galaxy by studying the dissolution of galactic globular clusters bombarded by them. In our simulations, we evolve the clusters…
We have developed a flexible framework for constructing physical models of quasar evolution that can incorporate a wide variety of observational constraints, such as multi-wavelength quasar luminosity functions (QLFs), estimated masses and…
In the local universe, the masses of Super-Massive Black-Holes (SMBH) appear to correlate with the physical properties of their hosts, including the mass of the dark-matter halo. Using these clues as a starting point many studies have…
We use a relativistic ray-tracing code to calculate the light curves observed from a global general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic simulation of an accretion flow onto a Schwarzschild black hole. We apply three basic emission models to…
The early evolution of the quasar luminosity function (QLF) and black hole mass function (BHMF) encodes key information on the physics determining the radiative and accretion processes of supermassive black holes (BHs) in high-$z$ quasars.…
We explain how quantum gravity, treated as an effective field theory, might modify the evaporative evolution of a four-dimensional, non-extremal, non-rotating, charged black hole. With some approximations, we derive a set of coupled…
We have used the IRAM Plateau de Bure mm interferometer and the UKIRT 1-5 um Imager Spectrometer to test the connection between the major phases of spheroid growth and nuclear accretion by mapping CO emission in nine submm-detected QSOs at…
We employ cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to investigate models in which the supermassive black holes (BHs) powering luminous z ~ 6 QSOs grow from massive seeds. We simulate at high resolution 18 fields sampling regions with…