The first supermassive black holes

It is widely accepted that, at the centre of every galaxy resides a Supermassive Black Hole with masses up to a billion solar masses. When a Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) at the centre of a galaxy is rapidly growing, through the in-fall of material via an accretion disk, it is known as an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) and can be seen to emit across the electromagnetic spectrum. We have observed AGN in the very early Universe, indicating that SMBHs exist even at very early times when galaxies were forming. This poses a number of questions; where did the first black holes come from? How did the first Black Holes form and grow to the masses observed in the early Universe? One of the main objectives of ESA's next large X-ray mission, the Athena X-ray observatory, will be to track the formation and growth of the first SMBHs, in order to try and answer these questions.
Working with existing models and predictions we will simulate surveys possible with the Athena X-ray observatory and attempt to constrain the population of SMBHs in the early Universe. We will use both hydrodynamical simulations to make predictions and existing observations to place constraints on the seeds of the first supermassive black holes and their subsequent rate of growth. We will also investigate the galaxies and larger scale environments of these early AGN, allowing us to better understand the growth of SMBHs, the nature of black hole seeds and the environments they exist within, and ultimately to determine how the first black holes became the massive SMBHs we observe at the centres of every galaxy in the nearby Universe.