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Energy input from quasars regulates the growth and activity of black holes and their host galaxies

25 Pith papers cite this work, alongside 2,928 external citations. Polarity classification is still indexing.

25 Pith papers citing it
2,928 external citations · Pith
abstract

In the early Universe, while galaxies were still forming, black holes as massive as a billion solar masses powered quasars. Supermassive black holes are found at the centers of most galaxies today, where their masses are related to the velocity dispersions of stars in their host galaxies and hence to the mass of the central bulge of the galaxy. This suggests a link between the growth of the black holes and the host galaxies, which has indeed been assumed for a number of years. But the origin of the observed relation between black hole mass and stellar velocity dispersion, and its connection with the evolution of galaxies have remained unclear. Here we report simulations that simultaneously follow star formation and the growth of black holes during galaxy-galaxy collisions. We find that in addition to generating a burst of star formation, a merger leads to strong inflows that feed gas to the supermassive black hole and thereby power the quasar. The energy released by the quasar expels enough gas to quench both star formation and further black hole growth. This determines the lifetime of the quasar phase (approaching 100 million years) and explains the relationship between the black hole mass and the stellar velocity dispersion.

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representative citing papers

The Light Curve of Wind-Reprocessed Tidal Disruption Events

astro-ph.HE · 2026-06-09 · unverdicted · novelty 5.0

Radiation hydrodynamic simulations of wind-reprocessed TDEs reveal a ~3-week offset between optical/UV and bolometric light curve peaks due to the buildup time of the reprocessing layer.

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