The Growth of Supermassive Black Holes Across Cosmic Time
2009
One of the main themes in
extragalactic astronomyfor the next decade will be the evolution of galaxies over
cosmic time. Many future
observatories, including JWST, ALMA, GMT, TMT and E-ELT will intensively observe
starlightover a broad redshift range, out to the dawn of the modern Universe when the first galaxies formed. It has, however, become clear that the properties and evolution of galaxies are intimately linked to the growth of their central black holes. Understanding the formation of galaxies, and their subsequent evolution, will therefore be incomplete without similarly intensive observations of the accretion light from
supermassive black holes(SMBH) in galactic nuclei. To make further progress, we need to chart the formation of typical SMBH at z>6, and their subsequent growth over
cosmic time, which is most effectively achieved with X-ray observations. Recent technological developments in
X-ray opticsand instrumentation now bring this within our grasp, enabling capabilities fully matched to those expected from flagship
observatoriesat longer wavelengths.
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