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Workshop: Hidden Monsters: Obscured AGN and Connections to Galaxy Evolution
August 8, 2016 - August 12, 2016
8 – 12 August 2016, Dartmouth
A great success of extragalactic astronomy over the past decades has been the ability to trace the growth of supermassive black holes over cosmic time, through observations of powerful AGN to high redshifts. However, it is increasingly clear that most black hole growth is “hidden” from traditional AGN selection methods (e.g., optical surveys) due to obscuring clouds of gas and dust. New observatories, particularly the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and the NuSTAR hard X-ray mission, are now allowing us to uncover these obscured AGN (the “hidden monsters” in galaxies). Recent observations and simulations are providing hints that obscured AGN are both more common, and more heavily buried, and perhaps more closely connected to galaxy evolution processes than previously believed. The objective of this international workshop was to bring together observers and theorists to discuss the physical nature and cosmological importance of obscured AGN.