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ASTRONOMY

 
 

Constraining the evolution of Super-Massive Black Holes and their Hosts

Francesco Shankar (OSU)

Supermassive black holes are ubiquitous at the center of all galaxies which have been observed with high enough sensitivity with HST. Their masses are tightly linked with the masses and dispersion velocities of the host galaxies. Also, super-massive black holes are considered to be the central engines of Active galactic nuclei (AGN). It is however still unclear how these black holes have grown and if they have co-evolved with their hosts. In my talk I will derive, in ways independent of specific models, firm constraints on how black holes and galaxies must have evolved within their dark matter halos. I will describe the accretion history of black holes from z~6 to z~0 by interconnecting a variety of data sets, from the AGN luminosity function and clustering properties to the black hole mass and Eddington ratio distributions.