The evolution (or not) of the BH-host galaxy scaling relations

A fundamental open question in galaxy evolution is: do supermassive black holes (BHs) and host galaxies grow in lockstep, or does the growth of one precede that of the other? We have uncovered a unique sample of galaxies at z~0 that are thought to be passively evolved relics of massive z~2 quiescent red nugget galaxies, hosting BHs that likely have not grown in ~10 Gyr. We make robust dynamical BH mass measurements in these relic galaxies and compare the sample both to local BH scaling relations and recent high-z results from JWST. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for BH – host galaxy co-evolution, and present a future research vision involving work at the CUNY Grad Center and CCA for better understanding how the BH scaling relations may evolve.