Growing Supermassive Black Holes in Cosmological Simulations of Structure Formation

We discuss a numerical model for black hole (BH) growth and feedback that allows simultaneous tracking of the evolution of galaxies and their central BHs in fully cosmological simulations. After describing the main features of the numerical model adopted, we show how BHs in these simulations affect the properties of their host halos and how this in turn impacts the growth of the BHs themselves. We also present results from a set of simulations specifically designed to address the issue of BH assembly in the early Universe and discuss whether or not different extensions of the model, in particular rapidly spinning BHs and gravitational recoils, can hamper the formation of the first bright quasars.