Brian McNamara

Colloquium seminar

“How Supermassive Black Holes Shape Large Galaxies”

October 8, 2026 University of Waterloo

Massive galaxies and galaxy clusters evolved under the influences of gravity and energy released by radio jets launched by accreting massive black holes. Jets quench star formation in galaxies and prevent the hot, X-ray emitting atmospheres pervading clusters from cooling into young
stars. Their energetics are well understood, and a solid framework has emerged describing how the hot reservoirs become thermally unstable and cool (Precipitate) into molecular clouds that form stars and feed the nuclear supermassive black hole. But how jet energy is distributed and thermalized throughout hot atmospheres is not understood. I will review the progress made over the past 25 years, and I will describe exciting new results from the XRISM X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope that are beginning to answer frontier questions on this topic.