Observational Signatures of High-Redshift Quasars and Local Relics of Black Hole Seeds

Abstract

Observational constraints on the birth and early evolution of massive black holes (BHs) come from two extreme regimes. At high redshift, quasars signal the rapid growth of billion-solar-mass BHs and indicate that these objects began remarkably heavy and/or accreted mass at rates above the Eddington limit. At low redshift, the smallest nuclear BHs known are found in dwarf galaxies and provide the most concrete limits on the mass of BH seeds. Here we review current observational work in these fields that together are critical for our understanding of the origin of massive BHs in the Universe.