{"id":5306,"date":"2026-11-04T10:35:33","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T13:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/?p=5306"},"modified":"2026-11-04T10:35:35","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T13:35:35","slug":"miercoles-4-11-the-causal-connection-between-major-galaxy-mergers-and-smbh-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/2026\/11\/04\/miercoles-4-11-the-causal-connection-between-major-galaxy-mergers-and-smbh-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Mi\u00e9rcoles 4\/11: The Causal Connection between Major Galaxy Mergers and SMBH Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Expositor:\u00a0<\/strong>Ezequiel Treister (Instituto de Alta Investigaci\u00f3n, Universidad de Tarapac\u00e1, Chile)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Date:\u00a0<\/strong>mi\u00e9rcoles 4 de noviembre, 15:00 hs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Abstract:&nbsp;<\/strong>Major galaxy mergers trigger only ~10% of active galactic nuclei (AGN), yet because merger-triggered AGN are the most luminous, they account for more than half of all supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth across cosmic time. As merging nuclei approach coalescence, gravitational torques funnel cold gas toward both nuclei, potentially activating one or both SMBHs. Key questions remain open: what determines whether one or both black holes are triggered? How do host-galaxy properties evolve along the merger sequence? And how much SMBH growth is hidden by heavy obscuration in the final stages? I will present results from a multiwavelength program targeting nearby major mergers hosting single and dual AGN. Hard X-ray to far-infrared SED fitting of 72 Swift\/BAT-selected AGN in interacting systems shows that projected nuclear separation is a poor tracer of merger stage; classified morphologically, late-stage mergers show ~5\u00d7 higher star formation rates, ~2.4\u00d7 higher AGN luminosities, and ~2.8\u00d7 higher nuclear obscuration than earlier stages (Troncoso et al. 2025). High-resolution (~50\u2013100 pc) ALMA CO(2\u20131) observations of seven mergers at &lt;10 kpc separations reveal that more massive SMBHs have more non-rotating molecular gas within their sphere of influence, yet this fuel supply does not track their accretion efficiency (Johnstone et al. 2025). Finally, the correlation between ~200 GHz and hard X-ray luminosities uncovers one confirmed and two candidate heavily obscured AGN in local (U)LIRGs (Droguett-Callejas et al. 2026). Together, these results point to a population of deeply buried, growing black holes, hosted by major galaxy mergers, that are largely invisible at optical and soft X-ray wavelengths.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Expositor:\u00a0Ezequiel Treister (Instituto de Alta Investigaci\u00f3n, Universidad de Tarapac\u00e1, Chile) Fecha:\u00a0mi\u00e9rcoles 4 de noviembre, 15:00 hs. Resumen:&nbsp;Major galaxy mergers trigger only ~10% of active galactic nuclei (AGN), yet because merger-triggered AGN are the most luminous, they account for more than half of all supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth across cosmic&hellip;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-novedades","category-seminarios"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5308,"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5306\/revisions\/5308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iate.oac.uncor.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}