SPP 1177:  Witnesses of Cosmic History: Formation and Evolution of Black Holes, Galaxies and Their Environments

• Subject Area: Physics
• Term: from 2005 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5472175

In recent years our Standard Model of Cosmology was confirmed and established by numerous observations. Starting from a very dense and hot initial state, called Big Bang , the universe expanded and thereby cooled. During this expansion, large-scale structures have formed, which can be observed as galaxies and quasars today. Due to enormous improvements in the technology of modern telescopes and instruments, it is now possible to examine these cosmic objects even at extremely large distances, and therefore we are able to observe them in the universe when it was much younger than today.
The goal of this Priority Programme is a detailed study of the cosmological evolution of galaxies, the relation of different properties of a galaxy to its environment, and furthermore the origin and consequences of the black holes which seem to exist in the centre of nearly every galaxy. We want to understand why there are different morphological types of galaxies, how the relative abundance of these types depends on the density of the environment and how this mixture evolves in time. We want to examine how black holes form in the centre of a galaxy, why there is such a tight connection between the mass of a black hole and the evolution of its host galaxy, and we are interested how much the evolution of a galaxy is affected by the high-energy processes near its central black hole. In order to improve our understanding of the aforementioned aspects, we use a large variety of methods. The empirical basis is given by astronomical observations obtained by large modern telescopes which are sensitive to the entire electromagnetic spectrum, starting from radio emission up to high energetic X- and Gamma-ray emissions. Only the combination of observations at many different wavelengths leads to a complete view about the examined cosmic objects. These observations have to be done in parallel with the development of theoretical models and numerical simulations. This is essential to interpret the observations in a consistent cosmological context.
The direct support of scientific projects is only one aspect of this Priority Programme. The second main intention is to enhance the information exchange among the individual research groups. Providing a platform for collaborations between research groups of different universities and institutes leads to synergetic effects and accelerates the progress in our scientific work.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• International Connection: Austria, Denmark, Netherlands

Projects

• An investigation of the structural properties of active and normal galaxies in the local universe and at high redshifts (Applicant Kauffmann, Guinevere )
• Anti-hierarchical black hole growth across cosmic history - X-ray constraints from deep fields and local mergers (Applicant Hasinger, Günther )
• Automatic detection of gravitational arcs in wide-area survey data, comparison of the observed and the theoretically expected arc abundance (Applicant Bartelmann, Matthias )
• BHs-BonnB: Dynamical modelling of SMBHs in galaxtic nuclei (Applicant Baumgardt, Holger )
• Black holes in high and low mass bulges and bulge-less galaxies (Applicant Bender, Ralf )
• Co-evolution of galaxies and their dark matter environment: constraining the standard structure formation paradigm through simulation and analysis of galaxy-galaxy lensing (Applicant Schneider, Peter )
• Co-evolution of galaxies and their dark matter environment: constraining the standard structure formation paradigm through simulation and analysis of galaxy-galaxy lensing (Applicant White, Simon )
• Co-Evolution of Supermassive Black Holes and Galactic Nuclei (Applicant Spurzem, Rainer )
• Constraining the dark matter halos of the Milky Way and Andomeda by µ-arcsecond VLBI Astrometry (Applicant Menten, Karl M. )
• Cosmological evolution of large-scale magnetic fields in galaxies and the intergalactic medium (Applicant Beck, Rainer )
• COSMOS: A Radio and (Sub)mm Study of Starbursts and AGN throughout Cosmic History (Applicants Bertoldi, Frank ;  Schinnerer, Eva )
• COSMOS: A Radio and (Sub)mm Study of Starbursts and AGN throughout Cosmic History (Applicant Bertoldi, Frank )
• Dark and luminous matter in the outer halos of elliptical galaxies (Applicant Gerhard, Ortwin )
• Detection and characterisation of dark-matter halos by gravitational shear and flexion; constraints on the non-linear cosmic structure growth (Applicant Bartelmann, Matthias )
• Dwarf-galaxy satellites of major galaxies (Applicant Kroupa, Pavel )
• Dwarf-galaxy satellites of major galaxies (Applicant Theis, Christian )
• Dynamical evolution of compact groups of galaxies (Applicant Ziegler, Bodo L. )
• Effects of gas dynamics on gravitational lensing by galaxy clusters; determination of physical cluster properties from analyses of lensing effects and the cluster gas (Applicant Bartelmann, Matthias )
• Emission line haloes in quasars: The smoking gun of quasar feedback? (Applicant Wisotzki, Lutz )
• Exploring the universe with gamma-ray bursts (Applicant Savaglio, Sandra )
• Feeding Black Holes: Gas Dynamics from the Outer Disk to the Very Nucleus in AGN Galaxies (Applicant Schinnerer, Eva )
• Galactic Winds and Turbulence in High Redshift Galaxies (Applicant Krause, Martin )
• Galaxy Assembly: understanding 8 billion years of close galaxy pairs and galaxy mergers (Applicant Bell, Eric Findlay )
• GHOSTS: the Nature of Galactic Stellar Halos from Resolved Stellar Populations (Applicant de Jong, Roelof S. )
• Going from galaxy clusters to galaxy groups: Cooling flows, AGN activity, and co-evolution of supermassive black holes with brightest halo galaxies (Applicant Reiprich, Thomas H. )
• Hard X-ray census of nearby active galaxies and implications for the cosmic history of black hole growth (Applicant Sunyaev, Rashid )
• Interactions between Active Galactic Nuclei and the Intracluster Medium (Applicants Brüggen, Ph.D., Marcus ;  Böhringer, Hans )
• Interactions between Active Galactic Nuclei and the Intracluster Medium (Applicant Böhringer, Hans )
• Interplay between reionization and galaxy evolution (Applicant Ciardi, Benedetta )
• Intra cluster MAGnetic fields origiNATing from star formatION processes (Applicant Dolag, Klaus )
• Intrinsic ellipticity correlations between galaxies (Applicant Schäfer, Björn Malte )
• Large-Scale Structure Formation in the Local Universe: Constraints from Extended Radio Emission in Clusters of Galaxies (Applicant Klein, Ulrich )
• Multi-wavelength studies of the luminous and dark mass profiles of galaxy-clusters in wide-field imaging surveys (Applicant Erben, Thomas )
• Near- and Mid-Infrared Observations of the Black Hole at the Galactic Center (Applicant Eckart, Andreas )
• Predicting star formation and metal enrichment in quasars for high-redshift ALMA observations (Applicant Klessen, Ph.D., Ralf )
• Probing galaxy formation at high redshift with damped Lyman alpha systems (Applicant Schneider, Peter )
• Shaping Our Galaxy Now: The Low-Latitude Stellar Stream around the Milky Way (Applicant Rix, Hans-Walter )
• Signatures of recoiled supermassive black holes (Applicant Kroupa, Pavel )
• Star Formation Across the Hubble Sequence: Clues to Galaxy Evolution (Applicant Walter, Fabian )
• Studying the Evolution of Cosmic Structure with Distant X-ray selected Clusters of Galaxies (Applicants Böhringer, Hans ;  Schwope, Axel )
• Studying the Evolution of Cosmic Structure with Distant X-ray selected Clusters of Galaxies (Applicant Schwope, Axel )
• The Antennae Galaxies - a key to galactic evolution (Applicants Naab, Thorsten ;  Recchi, Simone )
• The APEX Sunyaev-Zeldovich Galaxy Cluster Survey (Applicants Bertoldi, Frank ;  Böhringer, Hans )
• The Assembly of High Redshift Galaxies Probed by Imaging Spectroscopy (Applicant Förster Schreiber, Natascha M. )
• The coevolution of massive compact ellipticals and their black holes at high redshift (Applicant Naab, Thorsten )
• The Connection Between Quasars and Starbursts (Applicants Bertoldi, Frank ;  Walter, Fabian )
• The cosmic evolution of the black hole mass / bulge mass ratio (Applicant Wisotzki, Lutz )
• The Dusty Young Universe - Infrared and Sub-millimeter Photometry of High Redshift Quasars (Applicant Meisenheimer, Klaus Winfried )
• The evolution of the warm-hot intergalactic medium in a hierarchically evolving Universe (Applicant Richter, Philipp )
• The formation and evolution of tidal dwarf galaxies (Applicants Hensler, Gerhard ;  Kroupa, Pavel )
• The Great Laboratory M51: Probing the Physics of Star Formation and Radio Emission on the 100pc-Scale (Applicant Schinnerer, Eva )
• The impact of environment on distant spiral galaxy evolution: velocity fields and Tully-Fisher relation of intermediate-redshift cluster galaxies; observations and numerical simulations (Applicant Ziegler, Bodo L. )
• The key for probing galaxy evolution: relating luminous matter in galaxies to their dark environments (Applicant Seitz, Stella )
• The key for probing galaxy evolution: relating luminous matter in galaxies to their dark environments (Applicants Schneider, Peter ;  Seitz, Stella )
• The Maturing of Galaxies by Feedback from Jets (Applicant Khochfar, Sadegh )
• The origin of galactic disks (Applicant Burkert, Andreas )
• The physics of the intergalactic medium in relation to high redshift galaxies and quasars (Applicant Ciardi, Benedetta )
• The Quasar-Starburst Connection (Applicant Walter, Fabian )
• The Structure and Formation of Elliptical Galaxies (Applicant Burkert, Andreas )
• Unraveling the formation history of the Galaxy with RAVE (Applicant Steinmetz, Matthias )
• Unveiling and weighting Super Massive Black Holes at cosmological distances (Applicant Brusa, Marcella )
• Unveiling the link between galaxies and large-scale structures in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Applicant Porciani, Cristiano )
• Unveiling the primordial universe (Applicant Ciardi, Benedetta )
• Witnesses of Cosmic History - The Coordination proposal (Applicant Schneider, Peter )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Peter Schneider