Supermassive Black Holes in Cosmic Structure Formation

At present, our understanding of galaxy formation remains sketchy even though a basic paradigm for it exists - the theory of hierarchical galaxy formation within the LambdaCDM cosmology. The fundamental challenge is that galaxy formation involves a complicated blend of different physics that is non-linearly coupled on a wide range of scales, leading to extremely complex dynamics.  For this reason large simulations have become the primary avenue for theoretical research in galaxy formation. I will discuss state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation with unprecedented combination of resolution and physical complexity, including  radiative cooling, star formation and black hole growth. The prospect that we are reaching a position to use cosmology, i.e. the science of the Gigaparsec horizon, in our simulations to make predictions for the mass distribution in the inner regions of galaxies is extraordinary.

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