The Formation and Fate of Growing Supermassive Blackholes

First results from JWST have raised more questions than answers on the prevalence, growth, and impact of growing SMBHs (aka active galactic nuclei or AGN) at Cosmic Dawn. How robust is our selection of early black holes, and if true, how does this impact our understanding of galaxy evolution from the dawn of cosmic time to the peak of activity at cosmic noon?

From re-ionizing the Universe to stifling the star-formation of galaxies – the process of growing SMBHs via periods of intense accretion is often invoked as a necessary phenomena that shapes the Universe we live in today. For the past few decades the extra-galactic community has grappled with placing the onset growing super-massive black-holes, hereinafter referred to as active galactic nuclei (AGN) with meaningful changes to the global ISM of their host-galaxies and their impact on their surrounding large-scale environment. Consensus is building that not all AGN are formed alike, and that the environment they are formed in is critical to understanding their potential impact in the future.

I leverage high-fidelity multi-wavelength data and state-of-the-art simulations to build new selection techniques and test competing evolutionary paradigms that generate complete samples of AGN while probing the multi-phase ISM conditions and the environments that surround them.