All galaxies host a supermassive black hole at their centers, at least a million times the mass of the Sun. Material falling onto these monsters can be as bright as the galaxy itself, or it may be lurking unseen behind thick blankets of dust. I will describe the secrets at the centers of galaxies in the distant universe, 7-10 billion years in the past. This is an epoch in which galaxies have ample fuel for forming new stars and feeding their black holes. These monsters go through growth spurts and feeding frenzies that can greatly impact their host galaxies, possibly even terminating all nearby star formation. I will focus on Cold Quasars, which are some of the most luminous accreting black holes in the universe, and yet, surprisingly, their host galaxies have star formation rates of 1000 Msun/yr, casting doubt on whether black hole feedback impacts star formation at all.
The video of this talk is available here .