Coevolution of Black Holes and Galaxies

Collection of papers exploring black holes and related phenomena.

Luis C. Ho (Edited by)

9780521141567, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 March 2010

500 pages
24.4 x 17 x 2.6 cm, 0.79 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Anyone seriously considering research in this field would do well to make this their starting point, while those like me, who work in neighbouring ones, will certainly benefit from dipping into it. Go and ask your library to order one. Better still, ask them to order all four volumes!' The Observatory

This book was originally published in 2004. Black holes are among the most mysterious objects in the Universe. Weighing up to several billion Suns, massive black holes have long been suspected to be the central powerhouses of energetic phenomena such as quasars. Advances in astronomy have not only provided spectacular proof of this long-standing paradigm, but have revealed the unexpected result that far from being rare, exotic beasts, they inhabit the center of virtually all large galaxies. Candidate black holes have been identified in increasingly large numbers of galaxies, both inactive and active, to the point where statistical studies are possible. Fresh work has highlighted the close connection between the formation, growth, and evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. This volume contains the invited lectures from an international symposium that was held to explore this exciting theme, and is a valuable review for professional astronomers and graduate students.

1. The stellar-dynamical search for supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei John Kormendy
2. Black holes in active galaxies Aaron J. Barth
3. Intermediate-mass black holes in the universe: a review of formation theories and observational constraints Roeland P. Van den Marel
4. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Andrea M. Ghez
5. The first nonlinear structures and the reionization history of the universe Zoltan Haiman
6. Adiabatic growth of massive black holes Steinn Sigurdsson
7. Formation of supermassive black holes: simulations in general relativity Stuart L. Shapiro
8. Gas-dynamical processes in dense nuclei Cathie J. Clarke
9. Formation of massive black holes in dense star clusters Frederic A. Rasio, Marc Freitag and M. Atakan Gürkan
10. Accretion onto black holes Roger D. Blandford
11. QSO lifetimes Paul Martini
12. Fueling gas to the central region of galaxies Keiichi Wada
13. The AGN-disk dynamics connection J. A. Sellwood and Juntai Shen
14. Black holes and the central structure of early-type galaxies Tod R. Lauer
15. The inner properties of late-type galaxies C. Marcella Carollo
16. Influence of black holes on stellar orbits Karl Gebhardt
17. Single and binary black holes and their influence on nuclear structure David Merritt
18. Supermassive black holes: demographics and implications Douglas Richstone
19. Black hole demography from nearby active galactic nuclei Luis C. Ho
20. The evolution of quasars Patrick S. Osmer
21. Quasar hosts and the black hole-spheroid connection James S. Dunlop
22. Star formation in active galaxies Timothy M. Heckman
23. AGN feedback mechanism Mitchell C. Begelman
24. Pieces of the galaxy formation puzzle: where do black holes fit in? Rachel S. Somerville
25. Joint formation of supermassive black holes and galaxies Martin G. Haehnelt
26. The formation of spheroidal stellar systems Andreas Burkert and Thorsten Naab
27. Massive black holes, gravitational waves and pulsars Donald C. Backer, Andrew H. Jaffe and Andrea N. Lommen
28. Obscured active galactic nuclei and obscured accretion Andrew C. Fabian
29. Conference summary P. Tim de Zeeuw.

Subject Areas: Astrophysics [PHVB], Galaxies & stars [PGM]