What makes an AGN active?
Need a supply of gas to feed to the black hole
(Black holes from 1 million to >1 billion solar masses!
Scales as a few percent of galaxy bulge mass.)

• Collisions disturb regular orbits of stars and gas clouds
– Could feed more gas to the central region
• Galactic orbits were less organized as galaxies were forming,
also recall the “hierarchical” galaxy formation
– Expect more gas to flow to central region when galaxies are young =>
Quasars (“quasar epoch” around z=2 to z=3)
• Most galaxies may have massive black holes in them
• They are just less active now because gas supply is less