Description:

Supermassive black holes are ubiquitous in the nearby Universe. AGN feedback is thought to be a key mechanism that regulates the growth of supermassive black holes and their joint evolution with their host galaxies. How and when did these mysterious objects form? How did they grow quickly enough to power high-redshift quasars? I will summarize the demographics of supermassive and intermediate-mass black holes in the local Universe, their connection to  galaxies, and  recent discoveries made with the JWST that offer important, new insights on the earliest phases of black hole growth and their impact on galaxy evolution during the first billion years after the Big Bang.

Speaker: Luis Ho, Director, The Kavli Foundation

Host: Fred Rasio