# Could supermassive black holes form in dwarf galaxies?

Supermassive black holes often exist in large galaxies (e.g. the Milky Way, Andromeda). They make up a fair portion of the galaxy's mass. Is it possible for a supermassive black hole to form in a smaller galaxy - a dwarf galaxy (i.e. the Sagittarius Dwarf)?

• Can you try putting a little more detail into your questions? – Juka Nov 6 '14 at 2:10
• @Juka How so? It's a straightforward question. Why would you downvote? – HDE 226868 Nov 6 '14 at 12:24
• A fair portion of the galactic mass? Rather more like 1/100000 of the galactic mass. – LocalFluff Dec 4 '14 at 21:13
• @LocalFluff I meant relative to other individual objects. It was poor phrasing; I'll try to figure out a way to fix it. – HDE 226868 Dec 5 '14 at 2:39

The prediction was that dwarf galaxies have SMBHs, but with smaller masses than regular galaxies. This was based on the idea that regular galaxies were built from dwarf galaxies and the BHs need to have started growing early on. Also the correlation between bulge mass and BH mass requires the BHs to come from the building blocks. A recent paper at arxiv detects 28 AGN in dwarf galaxies with BHs in the $10^3 - 10^4 M_{\odot}$ mass range.