Related papers: Black Hole Masses of High-Redshift Quasars
Mass estimates, based on scaling relationships, are presented of central black holes in luminous quasars at a range of redshifts (z < 0.5, 1.2 ~< z ~< 6.3). The data show that very massive (about 10^9 solar masses or larger) black holes…
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…
A brief overview of the methods commonly used to determine or estimate the black hole mass in quiescent or active galaxies is presented and it is argued that the use of mass-scaling relations is both a reliable and the preferred method to…
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 first massive astrophysical black holes likely formed at high redshifts (z>10) at the centers of low mass (~10^6 Msun) dark matter concentrations. These black holes grow by mergers and gas accretion, evolve into the population of bright…
While large numbers of supermassive black holes have been detected at z>6, their origin is still essentially unclear. Numerical simulations have shown that the conditions for the classical direct collapse scenario are very restrictive and…
The recent discoveries of luminous quasars at high redshifts imply that black holes more massive than a few billion solar masses have been assembled already when the universe was less than a billion years old. We show that the existence of…
A reliable method for estimating the black-hole masses of high-redshift quasars would provide crucial new information for understanding the nature and cosmological evolution of quasars. In this proceedings we summarize the results of our…
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…
The most massive black holes at redshifts z = 6 were already over billion solar masses. In this chapter, we discuss the formation and growth of the first black holes in the Universe. The deaths of massive primordial stars provide potential…
We use the clustering of galaxies around distant active-galactic nuclei to derive an estimate of the relationship between galaxy and black hole mass that obtained during the ancient quasar epoch, at redshifts 2 <~ z <~ 3, when giant black…
The most massive black holes, lurking at the centers of large galaxies, must have formed less than a billion years after the big bang, as they are visible today in the form of bright quasars at redshift larger than six. Their early…
One of the fundamental questions about quasars is related to their central supermassive black holes. The reason for the existence of these black holes with such a huge mass is still unclear and various models have been proposed to explain…
So far, roughly 40 quasars with redshifts greater than z=6 have been discovered. Each quasar contains a black hole with a mass of about one billion solar masses ($10^9 M_\odot$). The existence of such black holes when the Universe was less…
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…
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…
In the local universe, black hole masses have been inferred from the observed increase in the velocities of stars at the centres of their host galaxies. So far, masses of supermassive black holes in the early universe have only been…
We investigated a sample of 15 luminous high-redshift quasars (3.3 < z < 5.1) to measure the mass of their super-massive black holes (SMBH) and compare, for the first time, results based on CIV, MgII, and Hbeta emission lines at…
The formation of the first massive objects in the infant Universe remains impossible to observe directly and yet it sets the stage for the subsequent evolution of galaxies. While some black holes with masses > billion solar masses? have…
Tight relationships exist in the local universe between the central stellar properties of galaxies and the mass of their supermassive black hole. These suggest galaxies and black holes co-evolve, with the main regulation mechanism being…