Demographics and physics of active supermassive black holes

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26800098
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Astronomy
• Research Institution: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (2016); The University of Tokyo (2014-2015)
• Principal Investigator: Andreas Schulze 国立天文台, 光赤外研究部, 特別客員研究員 (60721842)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: supermassive black holes / AGN / AGN evolution

Outline of Final Research Achievements

My goals are to improve our understanding of the phenomenon of active supermassive black holes (AGN) and the relation to their host galaxies. For the latter, I obtained a precise census of active black holes in respect to their most fundamental properties, their black hole masses and to the rate at which they accrete matter. We showed that for active black holes their mass is the main parameter to control their evolution with cosmic time. I have estimated black hole masses and accretion rates for a large sample of moderate luminosity AGN in the COSMOS field from near-IR spectroscopy and will soon provide our results to the community.
I provided new observational results on the origin of radio-loudness of AGN, i.e. why have some AGN strong relativistic jets, while the majority do not? Based on a large statistical sample we found observational evidence that the spin of the black hole, i.e. the speed of its rotation, is an essential factor, as long suggested by theoretical models.

Free Research Field

Astrophysics