Black hole Growth in the Early Universe

This project will focus on identifying AGN in the early Universe, studying the properties of the galaxies they lie in, and developing models to describe the co-evolution of galaxies and their central black holes that can be extended to the very earliest cosmic times. We will take advantage of a number of state-of-the-art spectroscopic surveys - including the MOSDEF survey (a major 49-night programme with the 10m Keck telescope), a completed 9-night Keck programme that focused on early AGN (carried out in collaboration with the University of California-San Diego), and the 3DHST survey (carried out with the Hubble Space Telescope).

We will use these surveys to identify AGN and determine their properties (such as their luminosities, black hole accretion rates, and their level of obscuration) and compare these measurements with other multiwavelength diagnostics (including X-ray and infrared techniques). We will then study how the properties of the AGN depend on the types of galaxies they are found in, providing new insights into the processes fuelling and regulating black hole growth in the early galaxy population. Finally, these results will be used to develop a model relating AGN and their host galaxies that can be extrapolated out to very early cosmic times to make predictions for future missions and observatories - in particular focusing on the Athena observatory, the next large X-ray mission under-development by the European Space Agency with a leading role by the University of Leicester.