Active Galactic Nuclei and Supermassive Black Holes

Abstract

MSE will probe the growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), and will characterize their relationship with host galaxies near and far, by measuring luminosity functions, clustering, outflows, variability and mergers. A multi-epoch reverberation mapping campaign with MSE will yield 2000 − 3000 robust time lags of the quasar broad-line region over a broad range of redshift and luminosity. This is an order of magnitude more than the expected yields from current campaigns, and enables accurate SMBH mass measurements for the largest sample of quasars to date and unprecedented mapping of their central regions. MSE will provide large, statistical samples of growing SMBHs with sufficient areal coverage, depth, and temporal character to cover the AGN zoo at z = 0 − 3. It will also build a large sample of very high-z (z > 7.5) quasars, and so probe the most distant SMBHs. MSE will simultaneously study the radiation environment close to growing SMBHs and the star formation histories of their host galaxies. MSE will provide better determination of the cosmological density of galaxies that host a binary SMBHs and will constrain the rate of SMBH mergers. Further, MSE will also allow us to better constrain how the cluster environment evolves from one that is conducive to the triggering of efficiently accreting AGN at high-z, to one that inhibits (efficient) AGN activity at low-z.