Early Growth and Efficient Accretion of Massive Black Holes at High Redshift

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Black-hole masses of the highest redshift quasars (4 ~ 4 quasars are very massive (>~ 10^9 solar masses). It is argued that the mass estimates of the high-z quasars are not subject to larger uncertainties than those for nearby quasars. Specifically, the large masses are not overestimates and the lack of similarly large black-hole masses in the nearby Universe does not rule out their existence at high-z. However, AGN host galaxies do not typically appear fully formed or evolved at these early epochs. This supports scenarios in which black holes build up mass very fast in a radiatively inefficient (or obscured) phase relative to the stars in their galaxies. Additionally, upper envelopes of black-hole mass of approximately 10^{10} solar masses and bolometric luminosity of ~ 10^{48} erg/s are observed at all redshifts.
Original languageEnglish
Article number676
JournalThe Astrophysical Journal
Volume601
Issue number2
ISSN0004-637X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 19 Sep 2003

    Research areas

  • astro-ph

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