Massive black holes in galactic nuclei: Theory and Simulations

Understand

Massive black holes are fundamental constituents of our cosmos, from the Big Bang to today.

• Understanding their formation from cosmic dawn, their growth, and the emergence of the first, rare quasars in the early Universe remains one of our greatest theoretical and observational challenges.
• Hydrodynamic cosmological simulations self-consistently combine the processes of structure formation at cosmological scales with the physics of smaller, galaxy scales.
• They capture our most realistic understanding of massive black holes and their connection to galaxy formation and have become the primary avenue for theoretical research in this field.