Supermassive Black Holes from Microparsecs to Megaparsecs

We believe that a supermassive black hole lurks at the center of every massive galaxy, where they can shine as an active galactic nucleus (AGN) when supplied with gas to accrete.  These black holes are believed to be important for regulating gas cooling in massive galaxies and clusters via “AGN feedback,” whose details are poorly understood.  The problems of supermassive black hole growth and feedback span roughly 10 orders of magnitude in spatial and temporal scale, an intractable problem for a single simulation.  In this seminar, I will discuss my theoretical work spanning this range in spatial scales: from modeling AGN central engines for the Event Horizon Telescope, to studies of the black hole-galaxy co-evolution with the Romulus cosmological simulations and semi-analytic models.  These studies help stitch together properties of AGN central engines and how they are connected to their host galaxies.

Host: Laura Blecha