Related papers: The Evolution of Quasars
The coherent rise and fall of the quasar population is discussed in terms of gas accretion onto massive black holes, governed by the hierarchically growing environment. The rise is related to plentiful accretion during the assemblage of the…
The evolution of quasar clustering is investigated with a new sample of 388 quasars with 0.3<z<=2.2, B<=20.5 and Mb<-23, selected over an area of 24.6 sq. deg. in the South Galactic Pole. Assuming a two-point correlation function of the…
The next generation of electromagnetic and gravitational wave observatories will open unprecedented windows to the birth of the first supermassive black holes. This has the potential to reveal their origin and growth in the first billion…
I recall how the discovery of quasars occurred more than forty years ago, and the strong debates marking out their story. It led to the discovery of Massive Black Holes, which are now known to be present in almost all galaxies, and it…
Understanding how galaxies form in the early universe and their subsequent evolution through cosmic time is a major goal of modern astrophysics. Panchromatic look-back sky surveys significantly advanced the field in the past decades, and we…
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…
Various observational techniques have been used to survey galaxies and AGN, from X-rays to radio frequencies, both photometric and spectroscopic. I will review these techniques aimed at the study of galaxy evolution and of the role of AGNs…
It is widely agreed upon that AGN and Quasars are driven by gas accretion onto a supermassive black hole. The origin of the latter however still remains an open question. In this work we present the results of an extremely simple…
The simple unification scheme of powerful radio galaxies and quasars, based entirely on the orientation dependent effects, has been confronted with the observed radio structures for 152 radio galaxies and 173 steep spectrum quasars.…
The article summarizes the observational evidence for the existence of massive black holes, as well as the current knowledge about their abundance, their mass and spin distributions, and their cosmic evolution within and together with their…
We investigate the evolutionary connection between local IR-bright galaxies ($\log L_{\rm IR}\ge 11.4\,L_\odot$) and quasars. We use high angular resolution ($\sim$ 0.3-0.4 arcsec $\sim$ few hundred parsecs) $8-13\,\mu$m ground-based…
Our current understanding of the evolution of obscured accretion onto supermassive black holes is reviewed. We consider the literature results on the relation between the fraction of moderately obscured, Compton-thin AGN and redshift, and…
Nearly 300 quasars have now been found at $z >$ 6, including nine at $z >$ 7. They are thought to form from the collapse of supermassive primordial stars to 10$^4$ - 10$^5$ M$_{\odot}$ black holes at $z \sim$ 20 - 25, which then rapidly…
We review the most important findings on AGN physics and cosmological evolution as obtained by extragalactic X-ray surveys and associated multiwavelength observations. We briefly discuss the perspectives for future enterprises and in…
In this thesis, I present an investigation into the environments of quasars with respect to galaxy clusters, and environment evolution with redshift and luminosity. The orientation of the quasar with respect to the major axis of the closest…
These notes are from three lectures given at the 54th Saas-Fee Advanced Course of the Swiss Society of Astrophysics and Astronomy in January 2025. This chapter reviews the dramatic evolution in our understanding of supermassive black holes…
Astronomers knew early in the twentieth century that some galaxies have emission-line nuclei. However, even the systematic study by Seyfert (1943) was not enough to launch active galactic nuclei (AGN) as a major topic of astronomy. The…
The last decade has seen tremendous developments in gamma-ray astronomy with the extragalactic sky becoming highly populated by Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). This brief review highlights some of the progress in AGN research achieved over…
The SDSS has opened a new era for the study of AGN spectroscopic properties and how these depend on luminosity and time. In this presentation we review some of the current issues and problems in studies of high-redshift quasars and…
The motivations and the status of the K20 survey are presented. The first results on the evolution of massive galaxies and the comparison with the predictions of the currently competing scenarios of galaxy formation are also discussed.