Аннотация:Growth of black holes by a combination of gas accretion as signposted by AGN and merging in hierarchically merging galaxies is consistent with the present day black hole mass function, the M•−σ* relation and the demography of AGN. The frequent merging in hierarchical structure formation models leads to the formation of supermassive binary black holes which are a prime target for the space‐based gravitational wave interferometer LISA. Predicted coalescence rates depend strongly on how 106M⊙ seed black holes form at z > 5 and vary in the range 0.3 – 100 yr−1.
