Editor's Summary
7 April 2005
Starring black holes
The discovery that every nearby galaxy hosts a massive central black hole, with a mass directly proportional to that of its stellar bulge, suggested that the growth of the black hole and stellar bulge of galaxies must be synchronized in some way. These stars are very old, so if there is a link to black hole growth it must have occurred a long time — more than 8 billion years — ago. The distant luminous galaxies known as submillimetre-bright galaxies (SMGs) are at the sort of redshift associated with such great age and a new survey of SMGs reveals simultaneous black-hole and stellar growth, providing the first evidence of a direct link between the major black hole–stellar bulge growth phase of nearby massive galaxies.
Letter: Rapid growth of black holes in massive star-forming galaxies
D. M. Alexander, I. Smail, F. E. Bauer, S. C. Chapman, A. W. Blain, W. N. Brandt and R. J. Ivison
doi:10.1038/nature03473