YAGN25 Preliminary Program
Monday, September 1, 2025 - Morning:
| Welcome remarks Matteo Bonetti, Pedro R. Capelo, and Sandra Raimundo |
08:45-09:00 |
Session: Early Universe and highly accreting black holes
(Chair: Stephen Molyneux)| Daniel Roberts (University of Southampton, UK) Too many or too massive? Investigating the high-z demography of active SMBHs from JWST |
09:00-09:20 |
| Tommaso Zana (Sapienza, Università di Roma, Italy) Fueling black hole seeds: Supercritical accretion in protogalactic environments |
09:20-09:40 |
| Lucas Tortora (University of Cambridge, UK) Radiative feedback of super-Eddington QSOs at high redshift in the JWST era |
09:40-10:00 |
| Giada Quadri (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy) Super-Eddington accretion and outflow properties in high-redshift quasars |
10:00-10:20 |
| Coffee break |
10:20-11:20 |
| Elia Cenci (Université de Genève, Switzerland) Improved modelling of direct-collapse black hole seeds in large-scale cosmological simulations |
11:20-11:40 |
| Flash talks Sophia Geris (University of Cambridge, UK): Exploring the presence of accreting black holes in the early Universe via JWST stacking Laetitia Martel (University of Southampton, UK): Critical Phenomena at the Threshold of Gravitational Collapse Saksham Chandna (Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy): On the origin of the z ≳ 6 Little Red Dots discovered by JWST Joel Carpenter (University of Southampton, UK): Investigating AGN Properties During a Changing-look Event in the Nuclear Transient ZTF18abuamgo Gregory Walsh (Niels Bohr Institutet, Denmark): Understanding Jet Formation through Changing-look Phenomena with VLBI | 11:40 |
Monday, September 1, 2025 - Afternoon
Session: Black hole transients and time-domain surveys
(Chair: James Leftley)| Laura Duffy (Pennsylvania State University, USA) When Quasars Wake Up: Telling Case Studies of Changing-Look Quasars |
14:00-14:20 |
| Matthew Temple (Durham University, UK) AGN Science in the Rubin Observatory's LSST |
14:20-14:40 |
| Simona Pacuraru (University of Birmingham, UK) Magnetic field evolution during tidal disruption events |
14:40-15:00 |
| Noah Kubli (Universität Zürich, Switzerland) Ultra-high Resolution Simulations of Tidal Disruption Events with the Novel SPH-EXA Code |
15:00-15:20 |
| Coffee break |
15:20-16:00 |
| Discussion Moderators: Matthew Temple and Tommaso Zana |
16:00-17:00 |
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 - Morning
Session: Black hole binaries and black hole pairs
(Chair: Shenli Tang)| Fabio Rigamonti (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Italy), invited MBHB detection: hide and seek in spectroscopy, time domain, and high-resolution imaging |
09:00-09:20 |
| Elisa Bortolas (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), invited Galaxy core scouring by supermassive black hole binaries |
09:20-09:40 |
| Karthik Mahesh Varadarajan (University of Southampton, UK) SMBH Merger Rates and GW Predictions |
09:40-10:00 |
| Stephanie Buttigieg (University of Cambridge, UK) Fact or FABLE: predictions for SMBH merger rates from cosmological simulations |
10:00-10:20 |
| Coffee break |
10:20-11:00 |
| Jasbir Singh (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Italy) Massive black hole mergers from light and heavy seeds: Implications for LISA, Lunar Gravitational-Wave Antenna, and Pulsar Timing Arrays |
11:00-11:20 |
| Alice Damiano (Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy) The cosmic dance: tracing Supermassive Black Holes in cosmological simulations |
11:20-11:40 |
| Flash talks Alex Rawlings (Helsingin Yliopisto, Finland): Imprints and signatures of recoiling supermassive black holes in elliptical galaxies Fabiola Cocchiararo (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy): Probing periodicities in massive black hole binaries with Gaussian Processes Federica Fastidio (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy; University of Surrey, UK): Evolution of consecutive PTA mergers from cosmological initial conditions Lazaros Souvaitzis (Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Germany): 3D Simulations of Inclined SMBH Binaries in Circumbinary Disks Lee Whitaker (University College Cork, Ireland): The Spin Evolution of Massive Black Holes Across Cosmic Time Stephen Molyneux (University of Southampton, UK): Evidence for universal gas depletion in a sample of 41 luminous Type 1 quasars at z ~ 2 James Leftley (University of Southampton, UK): Dusty winds and jets - understanding AGN structure and feedback pathways Joseph L. Tous (University of Southampton, UK): Distinguishing star formation and AGN in S0 galaxies via principal component analysis of optical spectra Giulia Ortame (University of Cambridge, UK): From dwarf galaxies to cosmic dawn: simulating black hole accretion and multi-scale dynamics in new regimes | 11:40 |
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 - Afternoon
Session: Active galactic nuclei and host galaxies properties
(Chair: Josep L. Tous)| Chiara Circosta (Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique, France), invited Looking for observational signatures of the role of active galactic nuclei in galaxy evolution |
14:00-14:20 |
| Nabanita Das (Georgia State University, USA) A Stellar Dynamical Mass for the Central Black Hole in MCG-06-30-15 |
14:20-14:40 |
| Martyna Winiarska (Durham University, UK) Investigating the effects of fresh gas on the active galactic luminosity of early- and late-type galaxies |
14:40-15:00 |
| Olga Borodina (Harvard University, USA) The propagation of low/moderate powered AGN jets through a turbulent interstellar medium |
15:00-15:20 |
| Coffee break |
15:20-16:00 |
| Discussion Moderators: Chiara Circosta and TBD |
16:00-17:00 |
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 - Morning
Session: Dual active galactic nuclei and mergers
(Chair: Elia Cenci)| Lorenzo Bertassi (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy), invited Searching for unresolved massive black hole pairs through AGN photometric variability |
09:00-09:20 |
| Josephine Chishala (Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Botswana) Testing the Merger-AGN-SFR connection in dynamically close galaxy pairs |
09:20-09:40 |
| Julie Biedermann (Université de Strasbourg, France) A new method to detect binary supermassive black holes in quasars |
09:40-10:00 |
| Coffee break |
10:20-11:00 |
Session: Dynamics around massive black holes
(Chair: Elia Cenci)| Lorenz Zwick (Niels Bohr Institutet, Denmark), invited Smoking gun signatures of the AGN channel in stellar mass gravitational wave sources |
11:00-11:20 |
| Alessandro Alberto Trani (Niels Bohr Institutet, Denmark) Gravitational wave mergers in active galactic nuclei |
11:20-11:40 |
| Davide Mancieri (Università degli Studi di Trento / Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy) Extreme mass ratio inspirals formation via two-body relaxation around spinning massive black holes |
11:40-12:00 |
| Flash talks Shenli Tang (University of Southampton, UK): Systematic search for dual quasars and their multi-wavelength follow-ups Ryan Pfeifle (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / Oak Ridge Associated Universities, USA): A New Population of Spatially-Resolved Mid-IR Dual AGNs in the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys Iver Warburton (Yale University, USA): Training the DRAGON: A CNN to Uncover Dual AGN Connar Rowan (Niels Bohr Institutet, Denmark): Prompt black hole mergers in AGN discs aided by gas: the hydrodynamics of binary-single scatterings Alastair Palmer (University of Birmingham, UK): Binary capture of black holes in AGN discs | 12:00 |
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 - Afternoon
| Discussion Moderators: Lorenz Zwick and TBD |
14:00-15:00 |
| Final overall discussion Moderators: TBD |
15:00-16:00 |