Dynamik und Wachstumsprozesse supermassereicher Schwarzer Loecher der untersten und obersten Massenskala

• Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Pavel Kroupa
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Astrophysik und Astronomie
• Förderung: Förderung von 2012 bis 2016
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 228179270

Motivated by observations of the masses of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and properties of their host galaxies, there is now a consensus that the evolution of galaxies and their central SMBHs are closely related. The most successful theories which explain these scaling relations incorporate SMBHs growing by gas accretion episodes while simultaneously creating tremendous amounts of energy in the form of radiation and jets. These outflows maintain a strong feedback on the surrounding interstellar medium and affect its properties like the star formation rate and further supply of matter to the SMBH, thus regulating the growth of both the black hole and its host galaxy. The project which I am herewith applying for deals with an additional and so far poorly constrained growth mode, the accretion of whole stars. We will investigate not only star accretion rates but also the dynamics of massive black holes at the extreme ends of the SMBH mass function. Direct Nbody simulations and self consistent field integrations will be two of the working tools. Our studies will help to clarify the issue if tidal disruption events of stars contribute significantly to the growth history of low mass SMBHs and if the recently reported deviations of the most massive SMBHs from the empirically discovered scaling relations may be caused by processes other than gas accretion and SMBH merging.

• DFG-Verfahren: Sachbeihilfen
• Internationaler Bezug: Australien
• Beteiligte Person: Professor Dr. Holger Baumgardt