Related papers: Mass function of dormant black holes and the evolu…
In our recent paper (Salucci et al. 1998) we have investigated the mass distribution function of massive dark objects in galaxies, exploiting the available optical and radio observations. Under the assumption that massive black holes power…
We follow the evolution of the Black Hole mass function in the assumption that mass accretion onto a massive BH is the powering mechanism of AGN activity. With reasonable assumptions suggested by current knowledge, it is possible to…
We report the first results of a program to measure accurate stellar velocity dispersions in the bulges of the host galaxies of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) for which accurate black hole (BH) masses have been determined via reverberation…
It has long been suspected that Active Galactic Nuclei are powered by accretion of matter onto massive black holes and this belief implies their presence in the nuclei of most nearby galaxies as "relics" of past activity. Just a few years…
This is the first paper in a series aimed at modeling the black hole (BH) mass function, from the stellar to the intermediate to the (super)massive regime. In the present work we focus on stellar BHs and provide an ab-initio computation of…
We derive the mass function of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) over the redshift range 0<z<2, using the latest deep luminosity and mass functions of field galaxies. Applying this mass function, combined with the bolometric luminosity…
In this review the correlations between host galaxy properties and black-hole mass determined from nearby quiescent galaxies are briefly discussed, before proceeding to investigate their application to active galactic nuclei (AGN). The…
The black hole mass function of supermassive black holes describes the evolution of the distribution of black hole mass. It is one of the primary empirical tools available for mapping the growth of supermassive black holes and for…
I present mass functions of actively accreting black holes detected in different quasar surveys which in concert cover a wide range of cosmic history. I briefly address what we learn from these mass functions. I summarize the motivation for…
A mass correlation of central black holes and their spheroids ~0.002(within a factor of three) is suggested by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and various ground-based CCD photometries of early type galaxies. The near-IR images of quasar hosts…
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have been found to be ubiquitous in the nuclei of early-type galaxies and of bulges of spirals. There are evidences of a tight correlation between the SMBH masses, the velocity dispersions of stars in the…
Observationally established correlations between black hole mass and host galaxy structural/dynamical properties (like the M_BH - sigma relation) give support to the idea of an intimate link between the growth of black holes (BHs) and their…
Using recently published estimates - based on high spatial resolution spectroscopy - of the mass M_{BH} of nuclear black holes for a sample of nearby galaxies, we explore the dependence of galaxy nucleus emissivity at various wavelengths on…
We summarize a study where we test the hypothesis that local black holes (BH) are relics of AGN activity. We compare the mass function of BHs in the local universe with that expected from AGN relics, which are BHs grown entirely with mass…
I review the status of observational determinations of central masses in nearby galactic nuclei. Results from a variety of techniques are summarized, including ground-based and space-based optical spectroscopy, radio VLBI measurements of…
The comparison of the black hole mass function (BHMF) of active galactic nuclei (AGN) relics with the measured mass function of the massive black holes in galaxies provides strong evidence for the growth of massive black holes being…
This is the second paper in a series aimed at modeling the black hole (BH) mass function, from the stellar to the (super)massive regime. In the present work we focus on (super)massive BHs and provide an ab-initio computation of their mass…
We use rotation curve kinematics of 1000 spiral galaxies to investigate if these galaxies could host BH (Black Hole) remnants that once powered the QSO phenomenon. The rotation curves of both early and late-type spirals are used to place…
The tight correlations between the masses of supermassive black holes (BHs) and the properties of their host galaxies suggest that BHs coevolve with galaxies. However, what is the link between BH mass ($M_{\rm BH}$) and the properties of…
If the activity of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is predominantly induced by major galaxy mergers, then a significant fraction of AGNs should harbor binary massive black holes in their centers. We study the mass function of binary massive…