PIRSA:10030067

Supermassive Black Holes: Workhorses of the Universe

McNamara, B. (2010). Supermassive Black Holes: Workhorses of the Universe. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/10030067

McNamara, Brian. Supermassive Black Holes: Workhorses of the Universe. Perimeter Institute, Mar. 24, 2010, https://pirsa.org/10030067 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:10030067,
            doi = {10.48660/10030067},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/10030067},
            author = {McNamara, Brian},
            keywords = {Cosmology},
            language = {en},
            title = {Supermassive Black Holes: Workhorses of the Universe},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2010},
            month = {mar},
            note = {PIRSA:10030067 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Brian McNamara University of Waterloo

Talk numberPIRSA:10030067
DOI10.48660/10030067
Collection
Talk Type Scientific Series
Subject

Abstract

The hot, gaseous atmospheres of galaxies and clusters of galaxies are repositories for the energy output from accreting, supermassive black holes located in the nuclei of galaxies. X-ray observations show that star formation fueled by gas condensing out of hot atmospheres is strongly suppressed by feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN). This mechanism may solve several outstanding problems in astrophysics, including the numbers of luminous galaxies and their colors, and the excess number of hot baryons in the Universe. The most energetic AGN outbursts may be powered by rapidly-spinning, ultra-massive black holes.