Thursday, October 16th 13:30 - 14:30
U2-2016
Seeking the growth of the first massive black holes in the JWST era
The advent of JWST has revolutionized our understanding of the high-redshift Universe, enabling the exploration of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) in unprecedented detail and extending observations to fainter and more distant objects. Early campaigns have revealed a ubiquitous population of AGNs at z∼5, with several extreme candidates identified up to z>10. Many of these AGNs are powered by black holes (BHs) that appear significantly overmassive relative to their host galaxies when compared to local scaling relations, and they often display peculiar observational features, such as strong X-ray faintness. Together, these findings pose a significant challenge to current theoretical models of early galaxy evolution.
I will discuss how combining the statistical power of semi-analytical models with detailed physical insights provided by high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations is essential for investigating the formation pathways and early evolution of this emerging population of massive BHs. Increasing evidence suggests that early BH growth might be dominated by short, efficient episodes of super-Eddington accretion onto the first BH seeds. Such rapid accretion phases - potentially triggered by frequent dynamical interactions in the first galaxies - could explain both their apparent overmassiveness and distinctive observational properties, while naturally providing a mechanism to realign them with the local population at later times.
Speaker affiliation: Università degli Studi dell'Insubria
[Host: Astroseminar Organizers]