Research Division Seminar
The Coevolution of Black Holes and Galaxies: A 10-Year Progress Report

Abstract

Supermassive black holes are ubiquitous in galaxies and play a fundamental role in their life cycle. I will review observational progress in defining and refining the various empirical scaling relations between black hole masses and host galaxy properties. I will emphasize ways in which the intrinsic scatter of the scaling relations can be quantified, and present evidence that the scatter correlates with physical properties. I will describe how the scaling relations can be extended to active galaxies and summarize preliminary efforts to probe the evolution of these scaling relations with redshift. I will present new measurements of the cold ISM content in AGN host galaxies and constraints they place on currently popular models of AGN feedback. Lastly, I will discuss a new class of low-mass black holes in bulgeless and dwarf galaxies that serve as local analogs of seed supermassive black holes.