Related papers: The Formation and Evolution of the First Massive B…
The recent discovery of luminous quasars up to a redshift z=6.43 has renewed interest in the formation of black holes massive enough to power quasars. If black holes grow by Eddington-limited gas accretion with a radiative efficiency of at…
The past 10 years have witnessed a change of perspective in the way astrophysicists think about massive black holes (MBHs), which are now considered to have a major role in the evolution of galaxies. This appreciation was driven by the…
Black-hole masses of the highest redshift quasars (4 <~ z <~ 6) are estimated using a previously presented scaling relationship, derived from reverberation mapping of nearby quasars, and compared to quasars at lower redshift. It is shown…
The presence of supermassive black holes at redshift z > 6 raises some questions about their formation and growth in the early universe. Due to the construction of new telescopes like the ELT to observe and detect SMBHs, it will be useful…
There is compelling evidence that supermassive black holes exist. Yet the origin of these objects, or their seeds, is still unknown. We discuss several plausible scenarios for forming the seeds of supermassive black holes. These include the…
The statistics of black holes and their masses strongly suggests that their mass distribution has a cutoff towards lower masses near $3 \times 10^{6}$ M$_{\odot}$. This is consistent with a classical formation mechanism from the…
(ABRIDGED) We present a model in which the seeds of supermassive black holes form from the lowest angular momentum gas in proto-galaxies at high redshift. We show that this leads to a correlation between black hole masses and spheroid…
A new model for the formation of active galaxies is described. A key feature of this model is the idea that the birth of black holes in the centers of supergiant galaxies is strongly influenced by the large-scale distribution of matter in…
We discuss the formation of supermassive black holes in the early universe, and how to probe their subsequent evolution with the upcoming mm/sub-mm telescope ALMA. We first focus on the chemical and radiative conditions for black hole…
The existence of quasars at redshift z > 5 indicates that supermassive black holes were present since the very early times. If they grew by accretion, the seeds of mass ~ 10^5 Msun must have formed at z ~ 9. These seed black holes may…
We describe a mechanism by which supermassive black holes can form directly in the nuclei of protogalaxies, without the need for seed black holes left over from early star formation. Self-gravitating gas in dark matter halos can lose…
The recent discovery of a large number of massive black holes within the first two billion years after the Big Bang, as well as their peculiar properties, have been largely unexpected based on the extrapolation of the properties of luminous…
Supermassive black holes are nowadays believed to reside in most local galaxies. Accretion of gas and black hole mergers play a fundamental role in determining the two parameters defining a black hole: mass and spin. I briefly review here…
I briefly outline recent theoretical developments on the formation of the first massive black holes (MBHs) that may grow into the population of MBHs powering quasars and inhabiting galactic centers today. I also touch upon possible…
Observations of distant bright quasars suggest that billion solar mass supermassive black holes (SMBHs) were already in place less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Models in which light black hole seeds form by the collapse of…
Regardless of their initial seed mass, any active galactic nuclei observed at redshifts z > 6 must have grown by several orders of magnitude from their seeds. In this chapter, we will discuss the physical processes and latest research on…
The origin of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) remains a long-standing problem in astrophysics. Recent JWST observations reveal an unexpectedly abundant population of overmassive black holes at z>4-6, where the BH masses lie far above local…
The high redshifts of the most distant known quasars, and the best estimates of their black hole masses, require that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) must have formed very early in history. Several mechanisms for creating and growing these…
We give the comment why the supermassive black hole exists at the center of almost all galaxies. We consider the origin of the supermassive black hole from the point of view of the density of the matter. If the density of the matter is…
The tight relationship between the masses of black holes and galaxy spheroids in nearby galaxies implies a causal connection between the growth of these two components. Optically luminous quasars host the most prodigious accreting black…