Abstract

Invited Talk - Plenary

The Formation and Early Evolution of Supermassive Black Holes

Jan-Torge Schindler
Universität Hamburg - Hamburger Sternwarte

One of the central questions in modern extragalactic astrophysics is the assembly of massive galaxies and their billion solar mass supermassive black holes (SMBHs) within the first two billion years of cosmic time. To trace the growth of SMBHs, my group identifies and characterizes them during phases of active growth, where they shine as active galactic nuclei or luminous quasars. Observations of quasars allow us to study the channels by which SMBHs form, how they grow to their observed masses and how they influence the evolution of their host galaxies. Furthermore, we employ modern machine learning methods to help us in our quest to discover the most distant quasars at cosmic dawn, when the Universe was only 5% of its current age (z > 7). In this talk, I will introduce the puzzle of SMBH growth and provide an overview of the ongoing research efforts within my research group at Hamburg Observatory.