Interaction of Supermassive Black Holes with Their Stellar and Dark Matter Environments

Abstract

While supermassive black holes probably gained most of their mass via accretion of gas, the galactic nuclei in which they are currently situated are dominated by stars. This article reviews recent theoretical work on the interaction between black holes and their stellar environment, and highlights ways in which the observed structure of galactic nuclei can be used to constrain the formation history of black holes. Nuclei may also contain dark matter, and the possibility of detecting supersymmetric particles via annihilation radiation from the Galactic center has generated some interest [26]. The evolution of the dark matter distribution in the presence of a black hole in a stellar nucleus is also discussed.