Series of online seminars “The sharpest view of the radio Universe: VLBI – Connecting Astronomers Worldwide”.
Full information at
In this seminar, our speaker, Mar Mezcua (Institute of Space Sciences, ICE-CSIC) will talk about “Intermediate-mass black holes in the era of radio astronomy”.
Abstract:
Black holes of 100–100,000 solar masses formed at redshifts lower than 20 are currently the best candidates to being the seeds of the first supermassive black holes that power the quasars detected at z ~ 6–7. Studying this population of high-redshift seeds has so far only been possible by investigating the possible local relics of those that did not become supermassive, which can be found in the local Universe as intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in dwarf galaxies. I will show how radio interferometric observations have been key to identify and characterize actively accreting IMBHs in the local Universe and out to z ~ 3. The next generation of radio telescopes such as the SKA will open a new window on detecting seed black holes at birth, probing the formation pathways of the first quasars in the Universe.
