Next Contents Previous

7. BLACK HOLES AND GALAXY FORMATION: CONCLUSION

Galaxy formation is complicated, so any conclusions that we reach now are less secure than the observational results discussed above. However: The observations suggest that the major events that form a bulge and the major growth phases of its BH - when it shone as an AGN - were the same events. The likely formation processes are either a series of dissipative mergers that fuel starbursts and AGN activity (Sanders et al. 1988a, b) or secular inward flow of gas in disks that builds pseudobulges and simultaneously feeds their BHs (Kormendy et nuk. 2001).