AGN sub-populations important for black hole mass growth: a rule of thumb

TL;DR

This paper identifies key sub-populations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) with luminosities above 10^52 erg/s as crucial for understanding super-massive black hole growth within the age of the universe.

Contribution

It provides a simple rule of thumb to determine which AGN sub-populations significantly contribute to black hole mass accumulation.

Findings

Sub-populations with luminosity > 10^52 erg/s are essential for black hole growth.

The rule of thumb simplifies identifying relevant AGN for black hole evolution studies.

Focus on high-luminosity AGN to understand super-massive black hole formation.

Abstract

For building the super-massive black hole population within a Hubble time, only sub-populations with more than 10^52 erg/s / L objects on the sky are relevant, where L is the sample-averaged bolometric luminosity.