Related papers: Supermassive Black Holes and the Evolution of Gala…
Supermassive black holes have generally been recognized as the most destructive force in nature. But in recent years, they have undergone a dramatic shift in paradigm. These objects may have been critical to the formation of structure in…
Black holes are a common feature of the Universe. They are observed as stellar mass black holes spread throughout galaxies and as supermassive objects in their centres. Observations of stars orbiting close to the centre of our Galaxy…
In the early Universe, while galaxies were still forming, black holes as massive as a billion solar masses powered quasars. Supermassive black holes are found at the centers of most galaxies today, where their masses are related to the…
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 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…
The existence of massive black holes was postulated in the sixties, when the first quasars were discovered. In the late nineties their reality was proven beyond doubt, in the Milky way and a handful nearby galaxies. Since then, enormous…
Supermassive black holes are now realized to exist in the centers of most galaxies. The recent discoveries of luminous quasars at redshifts higher than 6 require that these black holes were assembled already when the Universe was less than…
Massive black holes are ubiquitous, occurring at the centres of all massive galaxies and possibly many low mass ones. They are no ornament which just happens to be there, but play a role vital to the growth and structure of the host galaxy.…
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…
Beyond all reasonable doubt, black holes are commonly found in the nuclei of most normal galaxies. In recent years, dynamical measurements of hole masses have transformed the study of their functioning and evolution. In particular, relating…
Virtually all massive galaxies, including our own, host central black holes ranging in mass from millions to billions of solar masses. The growth of these black holes releases vast amounts of energy that powers quasars and other weaker…
While until recently they were often considered as exotic objects of dubious existence, in the last decades there have been overwhelming observational evidences for the presence of stellar mass black holes in binary systems, supermassive…
Supermassive black holes are located at the center of most, if not all, massive galaxies. They follow close correlations with global properties of their host galaxies (scaling relations), and are thought to play a crucial role in galaxy…
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…
Supermassive black holes are nowadays believed to reside in most local galaxies. Observations have revealed us vast information on the population of local and distant black holes, but the detailed physical properties of these dark massive…
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…
Quasars emit more energy than any other objects in the universe, yet are not much bigger than the solar system. We are almost certain that quasars are powered by giant black holes of up to $10^{10}$ times the mass of the Sun, and that black…
This review addresses one of the important topics of current astrophysical research, namely the role that supermassive black holes play in shaping the morphology of their host galaxies. There is increasing evidence for the presence of…
Black holes are among the most intriguing objects in modern physics. Their influence ranges from powering quasars and other active galactic nuclei, to providing key insights into quantum gravity. We review the observational evidence for…
Since a black hole does not emit light from its interior, nor does it have a surface on which light from nearby sources can be reflected, observational study of black hole physics requires observing the gravitational impact of the black…