By John Kormendy and Luis C. Ho. The review discusses dynamical mass evidence, nuclear accretion and the different correlations of black holes with classical bulges, pseudobulges and disks.
John Kormendy Created 2026-10-20 Updated 2026-11-05
John Kormendy investigates the structure of galaxies and their central supermassive black holes. His 2013 review with Luis C. Ho examines black hole mass measurements inferred from spatially resolved motion and their correlations with different components of the host galaxy.
An important distinction is between a galactic bulge, a galactic disk and a pseudobulge: the authors find that the same simple coevolution story does not describe all three. A correlation such as the M-sigma relation is therefore evidence to interpret in its structural context, rather than a universal description of every galaxy.[ref]
Luis C. Ho Created 2026-10-20 Updated 2026-11-05
Luis C. Ho investigates supermassive black holes and their connections to host galaxies. His review with John Kormendy organized dynamically measured black hole masses by host structure, including classical bulges, galactic disks and pseudobulges.
The distinction changes the physical interpretation of a scaling relation. Strong correlations with some bulge properties do not establish equally close coupling to every component of a galaxy. The review argued that weak relations for galactic disks and pseudobulges require a richer account of black hole growth than a single universal coevolution rule.[ref]
Figure 1.
Portrait of Luis C. Ho
. External portrait hosted by Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University. Source.