Abstract
It has been
over a decade since the discovery that the mass of a
central black hole scales with the
properties of its host galaxy. Because of these
remarkable scaling relations, the idea that galaxies
and black holes coevolve through some sort of
self-regulated feedback has come to dominate scientific
discussion. But do we really understand what the scaling
relations are telling us? I will review state
of the field and present recent developments from the
observational perspective of the black hole
scaling relations, including our rediscovery of a 1.7e10
solar mass black hole in a galaxy with stellar
mass only 1.2e11 solar masses, discussing how well
coevolution models and their alternatives can handle
this.
In addition to coevolution, the scaling relations in the
local universe inform the study of formation of
black hole seeds, black hole density functions across
cosmic time, and the disputed claims of evolution of
the scaling relations with redshift. I will discuss my
theoretical works in these areas as well as my
work on a new tool for using X-ray and radio
measurements to measure black hole masses. I will
conclude
by exploring what important, observational and
theoretical questions still need to be answered.