Poster Title: Mergers and binary systems of SMBH in contexts of nuclear activity and galaxy evolution
Abstract: Galaxy evolution and nuclear activity in galaxies can be connected with the cosmological evolution of super-massive black holes (SMBH) in the galactic nuclei. Galaxies are expected to merge frequently over the course of their formation and cosmological evolution, leading to the the formation of binary systems of SMBH. Binary SMBH are likely to play a crucial role in formation and evolution of active galactic nuclei (AGN). The dynamic evolution of a binary SMBH may be a key factor affecting a large fraction of the observed properties of AGN and galaxy evolution. In this framework, different classes of AGN can be related in general to 4 different evolutionary stages in a binary SMBH: 1) early merger stage; 2) wide pair stage; 3) close pair stage; and 4) coalescence stage. This scheme will be described in the contribution, in connection with a variety of observational properties that can be explained by the binary SMBH scenario: radio and optical luminosity variations between different classes of AGN, long-term and short-term variability, quasi-periodic nuclear flares, and recurrent formation of relativistic outflows in AGN and their apparent morphology and kinematics.
Link to poster: N/A