The EXIST view of Super-Massive Black Holes in the Universe
Roberto Della Ceca, Gabriele Ghisellini, Gianpiero Tagliaferri, Luigi, Foschini, Giovanni Pareschi, Fabrizio Tavecchio, Paolo Coppi, Josh E., Grindlay, Maria Teresa Fiocchi, Lorenzo Natalucci, Francesca Panessa, Pietro, Ubertini

TL;DR
The paper discusses the EXIST mission's capabilities to revolutionize the study of super-massive black holes by providing unprecedented hard X-ray surveys, enabling insights into SMBH activity, accretion physics, and early universe SMBH formation.
Contribution
It introduces the EXIST mission's unique instrumentation and survey strategy, highlighting its potential to significantly advance SMBH research across multiple key topics.
Findings
Expected detection of ~50,000 AGN above 10 keV.
Enhanced understanding of obscured SMBH accretion in the local universe.
Probing the earliest SMBH formation through rare blazar observations.
Abstract
With its large collection area, broad-band energy coverage from optical/NIR (0.3 to 2.2 micron) to soft/hard X-ray (0.1-600 keV), all-sky monitoring capability, and on-board follow-up, the proposed Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope mission (EXIST, see L. Natalucci contribution at this conference) has been designed to properly tackle the study of the AGN phenomenon and the role that SMBH play in the Universe. In particular EXIST will carry out an unprecedented survey above 10 keV (a factor ~20 increase in hard X-ray sensitivity compared to current and prior X-ray missions) of SMBH activity, not just in space but also in time and over a significant expanded energy range; this strategy will overcome previous selection biases, will break the "multi-wavelength" identification bottleneck and will dramatically increase the number of AGN detected above 10 keV that are amenable to…
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