Understanding Black Hole and Galaxy Co-evolution using the “COSMOS” - CANCELED

Observations indicate that supermassive black holes (SMBHs, 10**6-10**9 Msun) dwell at the centers of most local galaxies. Scaling relations between SMBH mass and several large-scale properties of the host galaxies point to a co-ordindated growth of galaxies and their central engines over cosmic time: they "co-evolve". Who is the leading actor on the the cosmic stage: the black hole or the galaxy? Is black hole activity triggering star-formation or suppressing it? Viceversa, does the galaxy control the black hole growth?

Observational works to address these questions have started, though withcontroversial results. In this talk I will present my work focusing on SMBH growth mechanisms, accretion and mergers,  to understand these processes, and their signatures. I will use the extraordinarily rich multiwavelength dataset of the Cosmic Evolutionary Survey (COSMOS). I will concentrate on the highest energy data available, the X-ray ones, from the surveys I have led using both the Chandra and NuSTAR NASA satellites. These data provide us with a unique and powerful tool to find and study accreting SMBHs in the distant Universe.

Speaker: Francesca Civano (CfA)