Prague Relativistic Astrophysics

Agnieszka Janiuk

On the cosmological scale, evolution of the Universe is much affected by the presence of supermassive black holes. One of the interesting issues is the intermittent character of their activity in the host galaxies, and the so-called duty cycles. On the other hand, a large fraction of SMBHs must have passed through the phase of a merger. In this context, the effects of BH spin reorientation as well as the signatures of gravitational recoil effect have been observed in a number of distant quasars. Thus the understanding of black hole growth, their feedback with galaxy formation and evolution, and the timescale of accretion before and after the mergers, are key questions that link the BH astrophysics and cosmology. In my talk, I will review the recent observational and theoretical developments in this topic.