ngVLA Key Science Goal 5: Understanding the Formation and Evolution of Black Holes in the Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy

Galaxy formation and evolution is intimately linked to the formation and evolution of black holes. The ngVLA will be a powerful telescope for providing new views on the interplay between galaxies and black holes across wide mass ranges. High-resolution imaging abilities will allow the separation of low-luminosity black holes in the local Universe from background sources, enabling studies of black holes in dwarf galaxies and thereby providing critical constraints on the mass function, formation, and growth of black holes. Its combination of sensitivity and angular resolution will provide new constraints on the physics of black hole accretion and jet formation, including the role of radio-mode feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN). With its sensitivity, the ngVLA has the potential to contribute to the pulsar timing of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), thereby providing crucial constraints on the interaction of supermassive black holes with their environments with specific implications for the relationship between mergers of galaxies and the subsequent emission of gravitational waves from in-spiraling supermassive black holes.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) project receives support from National Science Foundation (NSF) Physics Frontier Center award number 1430284. Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Next Generation Very Large Array is a design and development project of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.