ABSTRACT

The growth of black holes over billions of years releases energy that may quench star formation ("feedback"). Tracing the cosmic history of black hole growth with multiwavelength surveys, we find that most AGN are heavily obscured and that obscuration is more common in the young Universe and in low-luminosity AGN. Most black hole growth takes place in moderate luminosity AGN rather than quasars, and feedback in these systems affects far more galaxies than do quasars. At z~1-2, we see evidence that AGN may help quench star formation (which is not the case at z~0). Perhaps surprisingly, most moderate luminosity AGN are hosted in disky galaxies, out to z~2, suggesting that major mergers do not trigger most black hole growth. Finally, we find an intriguing dependence of AGN activity on host galaxy morphology which is not yet fully explained.

Short Biography, Meg Urry

Meg Urry is Chair of the Physics Department at Yale, as well as Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Professor Urry received her Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University in 1984 and her B.S. in Physics and Mathematics summa cum laude from Tufts University in 1977. Her scientific research focuses on active galaxies, which host accreting supermassive black holes in their centers. She has published over 200 refereed research articles on supermassive black holes and galaxies and is a Thomson Reuters “Highly Cited Author.” Prof. Urry is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society and American Women in Science, and received an honorary doctorate from Tufts University, and was awarded the American Astronomical Society’s Annie Jump Cannon and George van Biesbroeck prizes. Prior to moving to Yale in 2001, Prof. Urry was a senior scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which runs the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA. Professor Urry is also known for her efforts to increase the number of women in the physical sciences, for which she won the 2010 Women in Space Science Award from the Adler Planetarium.

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