Formation, growth and evolution

This conference will highlight the current and future science related to the formation and growth of supermassive black holes.

Instructions
Code of Conduct

Events Happening Now

No Events at the Moment

Key Speakers

Tonima Ananna

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College

Cosmic X-ray Background

Eduardo Bañados

Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg

Supermassive black holes and galaxies in the epoch of reionization

Tiziana Di Matteo

McWilliams Center for Cosmology

Cosmological simulations of black hole formation, Neutrino transport around black holes and Gamma-Ray Bursts, Accretion models and X-rays

Timothy Davis

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University

Molecular ISM in extragalactic environments, black holes, star-formation, kinematics, and feedback

Sheperd Doeleman

Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Supermassive black holes, high-resolution radio interferometry

Jenny Greene

Princeton University

Galaxy evolution and supermassive black holes.

Kayhan Gultekin

University of Michigan

Accretion physics, evolution, and feedback from black holes across the mass scale, from stellar-mass to supermassive.

Zoltan Haiman

Department of Astronomy, Columbia University

First stars and black holes formation and evolution. Simulations: mergers between astrophysical black holes, and weak gravitational lensing.

Ryan Hickox

Department of Physics & Astronomy, Dartmouth College

Active galactic nuclei, galaxy evolution, large-scale structure of the Universe, the cosmic X-ray background, X-ray binary stars.

Yang-Fei Jiang

Planet Formation, CCA, Flatiron Institute

Accretion disks, Black holes, Radiative transfer, Instabilities, AGN/Stellar feedback, Galactic Dynamics

Michael J. Koss

Eureka Scientific, Seattle

High Energy Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Active Galaxies, Multiwavelength Surveys.

Alessandro Lupi

Dipartimento di Fisica “G. Occhialini, Universita degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milano

Massive black hole and Massive black hole binary formation and evolution, Tidal disruption events

Chiara Mazzucchelli

European Southern Observatory (Chile)

High Redshift Quasars Protoclusters

Amy Reines

Department of Physics, Montana State University

Massive black holes in dwarf galaxies, star formation

Alberto Sesana

Royal Society, School of Physics and Astronomy

Gravitational waves, massive black hole (MBH) and massive black hole binary (MBHB) formation.

Nicholas Stone

The Racah Institute of Physics

Tidal disruption events, few-body systems.

Scott Tremaine

School of Natural Sciences, Institute of Advanced Studies

Cosmic Dynamics

Rosa Valiante

Astronomical Observatory of Rome, National Institute of Astrophysics

Supermassive black holes, early Universe, gravitational waves.

Abstract Book

Conference Schedule

The schedule displayed here corresponds to the local time in Chile (GMT-3).
Difference to Europe: +4 hours. East Coast US: -2 hours. West Coast US: -5 hours. Japan: +12 hours. China: +11 hours. UAE: +7 hours.

Monday,
December 07 2020

Session 1: Formation mechanisms of supermassive black holes

09:45–10:00 Welcome and introduction to the conference.
10:00–10:20 Invited talk Z. Haiman, The Initial Mass Function of Black Holes.
10:20–10:40 Invited talk T. Di Matteo, The first quasars in cosmological simulations.
10:40–11:00 Break in breakout rooms (informal).
11:00–11:05 Contributed talk A.C. Eilers, The Formation and Growth of Supermassive Black Holes at Early Cosmic Epochs.
11:05–11:10 Contributed talk A. Das, Nuclear star clusters as the birthplaces of Supermassive Black Holes: collisions and accretion in low-metallicity environments.
11:10–11:15 Contributed talk A. Escala, Observational Evidence for Massive Black Hole Formation Driven by Runaway Stellar Collisions in Galactic Nuclei.
11:15–11:20 Contributed talk G. Fragione, Repeated mergers and ejection of massive black holes within nuclear star clusters.

Session 2: Black hole mass determinations

11:20–11:25 Contributed talk A. Seth, Black Hole Demographics from Dynamical Studies.
11:25–11:30 Contributed talk B. Boizelle, Black Hole Mass Measurement in Luminous Earlytype Galaxies with ALMA.
11:30–11:50 Another break.
11:50–12:10 Invited talk T. Davis, Black holes across the Hubble Sequence:Gaining wisdom with WISDOM.
12:10–12:30 Invited talk K. Gultekin, Black Hole Masses Past, Present, and Future.
12:30–13:15 Discussion session, “Black hole formation”.
13:15–14:00 Discussion session, “Black hole mass determinations”

Shotgun presentations and additional contributed talks in the free-afternoon.

Tuesday,
December 08 2020

Session 3: The search for intermediate-mass black holes

10:00 – 10:20 Invited talk J. Greene, Intermediate-mass Black Holes.
10:20 – 10:40 Invited talk A. Reines, Intermediate-Mass Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies.
10:40–11:00 Break in breakout rooms (informal).
11:00 – 11:05 Contributed talk J. Cann, The Power of JWST in the Hunt for Intermediate Mass Black Holes.
11:05 – 11:10 Contributed talk A. Graham, Consistent predictions for intermediate mass black holes.
11:10 – 11:15 Contributed talk P. Cáceres, Search of Intermediate Mass Black Holes using Spectral Analysis.
11:15 – 11:20 Contributed talk R. Pechetti, An Intermediate-Mass black hole in a massive globular cluster.
11:20 – 11:25 Contributed talk I. Chilingarian, AGN powered by intermediate-mass black holes: fundamental relations and (often) rapid BH growth.

Session 4: Black hole growth in the local Universe

11:25 – 11:30 Contributed talk K. Tristram, Black hole growth on parsec scales revealed by interferometry.
11:30 – 11:50 Another break.
11:50 – 12:10 Invited talk M. Koss, Tending the Fire: Results from the BASS Survey on Black Hole Growth in the local Universe.
12:10 – 12:30 Invited talk S. Tremaine, Nuclear star clusters as maximum-entropy states.
12:30 – 13:15 Discussion session, The search for intermediate-mass black holes.
13:15 – 14:00 Discussion session, Black hole growth in the local Universe.

Shotgun presentations and additional contributed talks in the free-afternoon.

Wednesday,
December 09 2020:

Session 5: Accretion, jets and tidal disruption events close to the event horizon

10:00 – 10:40 Invited talk N. Stone, Tidal Disruption Events: Questionnaires in the SMBH Census.
10:40 – 11:00 Break in breakout rooms (informal).
11:00 – 11:05 Contributed talk B. Bandyopadhyay, Predicting observations of disk winds and jets for the EHT and the GMVA.
11:05 – 11:10 Contributed talk B. Mockler, Tidal disruption events.
11:10 – 11:15 Contributed talk P. Sánchez, AGN Variability Studies in the Context of the ALeRCE Project.
11:15 – 11:20 Contributed talk C. Ricci, The destruction and recreation of the X-ray corona in a accreting supermassive black hole.

Continuation Session 4: Black hole growth in the local Universe

11:20 – 11:25 Contributed talk P. Arévalo, The physics of feedback in M87.
11:25 – 11:30 Contributed talk A. Marconi, The physical properties of AGN outflows and star formation quenching.
11:30 – 11:50 Another break.

Session 6: Black hole growth over cosmic history

11:50 – 12:10 Invited talk T. Annana, Using the Cosmic X-ray background to constrain AGN population synthesis model and X-ray spectra.
12:10 – 12:30 Invited talk R. Hickox, The hidden and elusive growth of black holes over cosmic time.
12:30 – 13:15 Discussion session, Accretion, jets and tidal disruption events.
13:15 – 14:00 Discussion session, Black hole growth over cosmic history.

Shotgun presentations and additional contributed talks in the free-afternoon

Thursday,
December 10 2020:

Session 7: Super-Eddington accretion

10:00 – 10:20 Invited talk Y. Jiang, Radiation MHD Simulations of Super-Eddington Accretion Disks around Supermassive Black Holes.
10:20 – 10:40 Invited talk A. Lupi, Growing massive black holes via super-critical accretion.
10:40 – 11:00 Break in breakout rooms (informal).
11:00 – 11:05 Contributed talk M. Latif, Growth of massive black holes

Continuation Session 6: Black hole growth over cosmic history

11:05 – 11:10 Contributed talk T. Costa, Powering galactic super-winds with AGN.
11:10 – 11:15 Contributed talk S. Bonoli, From the nuclei of dwarf galaxies to the rarest quasars: modelling black holes across a wide range of scales.
11:15 – 11:20 Contributed talk E. Lambrides, The Importance of Lower Luminosity Obscured AGN in the BH-Galaxy Co-Evolution Paradigm.
11:20 – 11:25 Contributed talk S. Marchesi, New insights on early black hole accretion from simulations of X-ray surveys with Athena and with the AXIS probe.

Session 8: Supermassive black holes at z > 6

11:25 – 11:30 Contributed talk F. Bian, The most massive supermassive black holes at early epoch of the University.
11:30 – 11:50 Another break.
11:50 – 12:10 Invited talk E. Bañados, Quasars in the epoch of reionization.
12:10 – 12:30 Invited talk C. Mazzucchelli, Feeding the earliest supermassive black-holes: High-redshift quasars and their environments.
12:30 – 13:15 Discussion session, Supermassive black holes at z>6.

Shotgun presentations and additional contributed talks in the free-afternoon

Friday,
December 11 2020:

Session 9: Black hole binaries from LIGO to LISA

09:00 – 09:45 Discussion session, Super-Eddington accretion.
10:00 – 10:20 Invited talk A. Sesana, Black hole binaries across twelve decades in frequency.
10:20 – 10:40 Invited talk R. Valiante, Unveiling early BHs growth with multi-frequency gravitational wave observations.
10:40 – 11:00 Break in breakout rooms (informal).
11:00 – 11:05 Contributed talk M. Charisi, Pulsar Timing Array Limits on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries within 500 Mpc.
11:05 – 11:10 Contributed talk N. Sahu, New Morphology-Dependent Black Hole Scaling Relations and the Pursuit of Long-wavelength Gravitational Waves.

Continuation Session 6: Black hole growth over cosmic history

11:10 – 11:15 Contributed talk Y. Li, Direct Detection of Black Hole-Driven Turbulence in the Centers of Galaxy Clusters.

Continuation Session 8: Supermassive black holes at z > 6

11:15 – 11:20 Contributed talk M. Ononue, Black Hole Mass Measurements of Low-Luminosity Quasars at z > 6.
11:20 – 11:25 Contributed talk T. Woods, On the origin of the most massive high-redshift quasars.

Session 10: The nearest SMBHs – M87 and the MW

11:25 – 11:30 Contributed talk D. Calderón, Stellar Winds Pump the Heart of the Milky Way.
11:30 – 11:50 Another break.
11:50 – 12:30 Invited talk S. Doeleman, The Event Horizon Telescope: Latest Results and Future Plans.
12:30 – 13:15 Discussion session, Black hole binaries from LIGO to LISA.
13:15 – 14:00 Discussion session, The nearest SMBHs – M87 and the MW.
14:00 – 14:20 Farewell.

Join Us #smbh2020