Tuesday

Supermassive black holes are well understood to play an important role in galaxy evolution, as well as acting as an observational probe reaching back to the very early universe. One of the most uncertain aspects of our understanding of supermassive black holes is the mechanism by which their initial seeds form and the efficiency and frequency with which this occurs, which has the potential to directly impact galaxy evolution at high redshift . Using high-resolution cosmological simulations and post-processing of black hole accretion and merger histories, I will discuss which observables are (and are not) affected by changing the seed mechanism. In particular, I will focus on how global properties such as the black hole mass function, global accretion rate density, and the quasar luminosity function depend on the fraction and type (e.g. metallicity and spin parameters) of halos capable of forming SMBH seeds, and the possible seeding constraints we can determine from current and upcoming observational surveys.