Bonn 2010 – scientific programme

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GR: Fachverband Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 10: Hauptvorträge Mittwoch: Astrophysik

GR 10.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 08:30–09:15, JUR K

Supermassive black holes in galaxies: Correlations, coincidences and coevolution — •Knud Jahnke — Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg

It has been known for about a decade that supermassive black holes exist in the centers of at least most massive galaxies. This moved the previously deemed exotic class of galaxies with an "active nucleus" e.g. knows as "quasars" in their most extreme form, into the focus of galaxy evolution research. Black holes grow and evolve in galaxies, no doubt about this. But do galaxy and black hole growth influence each other? The existence of scaling relations between black hole and galaxy suggests this, e.g. through a potential mechanism of energetic feedback from the black hole into the galaxy and a resulting self regulating loop of black hole and stellar mass growth.

I will review the observational evidence and mechanisms that are seen or proposed to be effective in the apparent coevolution of galaxies and black holes and show the current state of empirical constraints. And I will ask the question whether there are alternatives to an interpretation of the galaxy black hole scaling relations other than a causal connection of the two.