Professor Francesco Shankar

Francesco Shankar is Professor of Astrophysics and CHEP teaching champion in the School of Physics and Astronomy.

After obtaining his PhD at SISSA and a postdoc at the Ohio State University, he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics as an Alexander von Hulmboldt Fellow, and then to the Observatoire de Paris as a Marie Curie Fellow. He then joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy in 2013.

Professor Shankar is PI of a H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (https://www.bid4best.org/), fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, fellow of the Higher Education Academy, fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and PI of a large-scale project in medical science aimed at optimising blood pressure measurements strategies. Professor Shankar also sits on diverse scientific Advisory Board Panels worldwide and is leading a massive outreach/public engagement project named Astera (Astera - A Cosmological Visualizer (soton.ac.uk)), an interactive, fully immersive 3D realization of the Universe.

Research

Research interests

Professor Shankar's research revolves around the theoretical modelling of galaxies, their central supermassive black holes, and their host dark matter haloes. He pioneered in the phenomenological modelling of galaxies and black holes based on a combination of abundance matching and continuity equation techniques. He has now started a group in extra-galactic astronomy aimed at specifically constraining the evolutionary channels of early-type, bulged galaxies and supermassive black holes via advanced semi-empirical models. The latter are characterized by a “bottom-up” approach: The least possible assumptions and associated parameters are initially included in the models which are otherwise informed by a number of independent observations. Additional degrees of complexities can be gradually included wherever needed. Semi-empirical models in this respect are a very powerful complementary tool to cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and semi-analytic models. The team is part of Euclid, Athena, and LSST. The increasing quantity of future data in extra-galactic Astronomy will have to be paralleled by fast modelling. The extreme flexibility and accuracy make semi-empirical models ideal tools to create full test catalogues for fast predictions and comparisons to data. Professor Shankar's research interests also lie in other areas of physics. He acted as guest editor for a review on keV sterile neutrinos and joined as co-I massive grant proposals that focus on the detection of dark matter particles via quantum sensors.

Publications

2022

Shankar, F, Marsden, Christopher, Carraro, Rosamaria, Allevato, Viola, Rodighiero, Giulia, Arévalo, Patricia, Delvecchio, Ivan and Lapi, Andrea (2022) An Eddington ratio-driven origin for the L_X- M-* relation in quiescent and star-forming active galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 512 (1), 1185 - 1195. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stac441).
Shankar, F., Dimauro, Paola, Daddi, Emanuele, Cattaneo, Andrea, Huertas-Company, Marc, Bernardi, Mariangela, Caro, Fernando, Dupke, Renato, Häußler, Boris, Johnston, Evelyn, Cortesi, Arianna, Mei, Simona and Peletier, Reynier (2022) Coincidence between morphology and star formation activity through cosmic time: the impact of the bulge growth. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (In Press)
Sicilia, Alex, Lapi, Andrea, Boco, Lumen, Spera, Mario, Di Carlo, Ugo N., Mapelli, Michela, Shankar, Francesco, Alexander, David M., Bressan, Alessandro and Danese, Luigi (2022) The black hole mass function across cosmic times. I. Stellar black holes and light seed distribution. The Astrophysical Journal, 924 (2), 56, [56]. (doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac34fb).

2021

Allevato, V., Shankar, F., Marsden, C., Rasulov, U., Viitanen, A., Georgakakis, A., Ferrara, A. and Finoguenov, A. (2021) Building robust active galactic nuclei mock catalogs to unveil black hole evolution and for survey planning. Astrophysical Journal. (doi:10.3847/1538-4357/abfe59/meta).
Augustin, Alexandry, Coutts, Louise, Zanisi, Lorenzo, Wierzbicki, Anthony S., Shankar, Francesco, Chowienczyk, Phil J. and Floyd, Christopher N. (2021) Impact of therapeutic inertia on long-term blood pressure control a Monte Carlo simulation study. Hypertension, 77 (4), 1350–1359. (doi:10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.15866).
Baldi, Ranieri Diego, McHardy, Ian, Zanisi, Lorenzo, Shankar, F, Williams, D.R.A., Beswick, R.J., Dullo, B.T., Knapen, J.H., Argo, M.K., Aalto, S., Alberdi, A., Baan, W.A., Bendo, G.J., Fenech, D.M., Green, D.A., Klöckner, H.-R., Körding, E., Maccarone, T.J., Marcaide, J.M., Mutie, I., Panessa, F., Pérez-Torres, M.A., Romero-Cañizales, C., Saikia, D.J., Saikia, P., Spencer, R.E., Stevens, I.R., Uttley, P., Brinks, E., Corbel, S., Martí-Vidal, I., Mundell, C.G., Pahari, M. and Ward, M.J. (2021) LeMMINGs III. The e-MERLIN legacy survey of the Palomar sample: Exploring the origin of nuclear radio emission in active and inactive galaxies through the [O iii] - radio connection. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Timberlake, Christopher, Vinante, Andrea, Shankar, F, Lapi, Andrea and Ulbricht, Hendrik (2021) Probing modified gravity with magnetically levitated resonators. Physical Review D, 104 (10), [L101101]. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.104.L101101).
Martin-Navarro, Ignacio, Shankar, F. and Mezcua, Mar (2021) Rejuvenation triggers nuclear activity in nearby galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 513 (1), L10–L14. (doi:10.1093/mnrasl/slab112).
Zanisi, Lorenzo, Shankar, F, Fu, H., Rodriguez-Puebla, Aldo, Avila-Reese, V., Faisst, A., Daddi, E., Boco, L., Lapi, A., Giavalisco, M., Saracco, P., Buitrago, Fernando, Huertas-Company, M., Puglisi, A. and Dekel, A. (2021) The evolution of compact massive quiescent and star-forming galaxies derived from the Re-Rhand Mstar-Mhrelations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 505 (3), 4555–4570. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stab1472).
Zanisi, Lorenzo, Shankar, F, Bernardi, M., Mei, S. and Huertas-Company, M. (2021) The size function of massive satellites from the R-e-R-h and M-star-M-h relations: constraining the role of environment. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (In Press)
Marsden, Christopher, Shankar, F., Fu, Hao, Bernardi, Mariangela, Sheth, Ravi K. and Lapi, Andrea (2021) The weak dependence of velocity dispersion on disc fractions, mass-to-light ratio, and redshift: implications for galaxy and black hole evolution. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 510 (4), 5639–5660. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stab3705).

2020

Zanisi, Lorenzo, Huertas-Company, Marc, Lanusse, François, Bottrell, Connor, Pillepich, Annalisa, Nelson, Dylan, Rodriguez-Gomez, Vicente, Shankar, Francesco, Hernquist, Lars, Dekel, Avishai, Margalef-Bentabol, Berta, Vogelsberger, Mark and Primack, Joel (2020) A deep learning approach to test the small-scale galaxy morphology and its relationship with star formation activity in hydrodynamical simulations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 501 (3). (doi:10.1093/mnras/staa3864).
Ananna, Tonima T., Megan Urry, C., Treister, Ezequiel, Hickox, Ryan C., Shankar, Francesco, Ricci, Claudio, Cappelluti, Nico, Marchesi, Stefano and Turner, Tracey Jane (2020) Accretion history of AGNs. III. Radiative efficiency and AGN contribution to reionization. Astrophysical Journal, 903 (2), [85]. (doi:10.3847/1538-4357/abb815).
Zanisi, Lorenzo, Shankar, Francesco, Lapi, Andrea, Menci, Nicola, Bernardi, Mariangela, Duckworth, Christopher, Huertas-Company, Marc, Grylls, Philip and Salucci, Paolo (2020) Galaxy sizes and the galaxy–halo connection – I. The remarkable tightness of the size distributions. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 492 (2), 1671-1690. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stz3516).
Asmus, D., Greenwell, C.L., Gandhi, P., Boorman, P.G., Aird, J., Alexander, D.M., Assef, R.J., Baldi, R.D., Davies, R.I., Hönig, S.F., Ricci, C., Rosario, D.J., Salvato, M., Shankar, F. and Stern, D. (2020) Local AGN Survey (LASr): I. Galaxy sample, infrared colour selection and predictions for AGN within 100 Mpc. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 494 (2), 1784–1816. (doi:10.1093/mnras/staa766).
Suh, Hyewon, Civano, Francesca, Trakhtenbrot, Benny, Shankar, Francesco, Hasinger, Günther, Sanders, David B. and Allevato, Viola (2020) No significant evolution of relations between black hole mass and galaxy total stellar mass up to z ∼ 2.5. The Astrophysical Journal, 889 (1), [32]. (doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab5f5f).
Shankar, Francesco, Weinberg, David H, Marsden, Christopher, Grylls, Philip J., Bernardi, Mariangela, Yang, Guang, Moster, Benjamin, Fu, Hao, Carraro, Rosamaria, Alexander, David M., Allevato, Viola, Ananna, Tonima T., Bongiorno, Angela, Calderone, Giorgio, Civano, Francesca, Daddi, Emanuele, Delvecchio, Ivan, Duras, Federica, La franca, Fabio, Lapi, Andrea, Lu, Youjun, Menci, Nicola, Mezcua, Mar, Ricci, Federica, Rodighiero, Giulia, Sheth, Ravi K, Suh, Hyewon, Villforth, Carolin and Zanisi, Lorenzo (2020) Probing black hole accretion tracks, scaling relations, and radiative efficiencies from stacked X-ray active galactic nuclei. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 493 (1), 1500-1511. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stz3522).
Marsden, Christopher, Shankar, F, Ginolfi, Michele and Zubovas, Kastytis (2020) The case for the fundamental MBH-σ relation. Frontiers in Physics, 8, [61]. (doi:10.3389/fphy.2020.00061).
Duras, F., Bongiorno, A., Ricci, F., Piconelli, E., Shankar, F., Lusso, E., Bianchi, S., Fiore, F., Maiolino, R., Marconi, A., Onori, F., Sani, E., Schneider, R., Vignali, C. and La Franca, F. (2020) Universal bolometric corrections for active galactic nuclei over seven luminosity decades. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 636, [A73]. (doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201936817).

2019

Grylls, Philip, Shankar, F., Zanisi, L. and Bernardi, M. (2019) A statistical semi-empirical model: Satellite galaxies in groups and clusters. Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, 483 (2), 2506-2523. (doi:10.1093/mnras/sty3281).
Shankar, Francesco, Bernardi, Mariangela, Richardson, Kayleigh, Marsden, Christopher, Sheth, Ravi, Allevato, Viola, Graziani, Luca, Mezcua, Mar, Ricci, Federica, Penny, Samantha J., La Franca, Fabio and Pacucci, Fabio (2019) Black hole scaling relations of active and quiescent galaxies: Addressing selection effects and constraining virial factors. Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, 485 (1), 1278-1292. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stz376).
Allevato, V., Viitanen, A., Finoguenov, A., Civano, F., Suh, H., Shankar, F, Bongiorno, A., Ferrara, A., Gilli, R., Miyaji, T., Marchesi, S., Cappelluti, N. and Salvato, M. (2019) Chandra COSMOS Legacy Survey: Clustering dependence of Type 2 active galactic nuclei on host galaxy properties. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 632. (doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201936191).
Shankar, F, Allevato, Viola, Bernardi, Mariangela, Marsden, Christopher, Lapi, Andrea, Menci, Nicola, Grylls, Philip J., Krumpe, Mirko, Zanisi, Lorenzo, Ricci, Federica, La Franca, Fabio, Baldi, Ranieri D., Moreno, Jorge and Sheth, Ravi K. (2019) Constraining black hole–galaxy scaling relations and radiative efficiency from galaxy clustering. Nature Astronomy.
Menci, N., Fiore, F., Feruglio, C., Lamastra, A., Shankar, F., Piconcelli, E., Giallongo, E. and Grazian, A. (2019) Outflows in the disks of active galaxies. The Astrophysical Journal, 877 (2), 1-19, [74]. (doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab1a3a).
Grylls, Philip J, Shankar, F, Leja, J, Menci, N, Moster, B, Behroozi, P and Zanisi, L (2019) Predicting fully self-consistent satellite richness, galaxy growth and starformation rates from the STastical sEmi-Empirical modeL steel. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 491 (1), 634–654. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stz2956).
Delvecchio, I., Daddi, E., Shankar, F., Mullaney, J.R., Zamorani, G., Aird, J., Bernhard, E., Cimatti, A., Elbaz, D., Giavalisco, M. and Grimmett, L.P. (2019) The galaxy's gas content regulated by the dark matter halo mass results in a superlinear M BH-M ∗ relation. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 885 (2), [L36]. (doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab4e21).
Dimauro, Paola, Huertas-Company, Marc, Daddi, Emanuele, Pérez-González, Pablo G., Bernardi, Mariangela, Caro, Fernando, Cattaneo, Andrea, Häußler, Boris, Kuchner, Ulrike, Shankar, Francesco, Barro, Guillermo, Buitrago, Fernando, Faber, Sandra M, Kocevski, Dale D, Koekemoer, Anton M, Koo, David C, Mei, Simona, Peletier, Reynier, Primack, Joel, Rodriguez-puebla, Aldo, Salvato, Mara and Tuccillo, Diego (2019) The structural properties of classical bulges and discs from z ∼ 2. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 489 (3), 4135-4154. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stz2421).

2018

Dimauro, Paola, Huertas-Company, Marc, Daddi, Emanuele, Pérez-González, Pablo G., Bernardi, Mariangela, Barro, Guillermo, Buitrago, Fernando, Caro, Fernando, Cattaneo, Andrea, Dominguez-Sánchez, Helena, Faber, Sandra M., Häußler, Boris, Kocevski, Dale D., Koekemoer, Anton M., Koo, David C., Lee, Christoph T., Mei, Simona, Margalef-Bentabol, Berta, Primack, Joel, Rodriguez-Puebla, Aldo, Salvato, Mara, Shankar, Francesco and Tuccillo, Diego (2018) A catalog of polychromatic bulge-disc decompositions of ~17.600 galaxies in CANDELS. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 478 (4), 5410-5426. (doi:10.1093/mnras/sty1379).
Steinborn, Lisa K, Hirschmann, Michaela, Dolag, Klaus, Shankar, Francesco, Juneau, Stéphanie, Krumpe, Mirko, Remus, Rhea-silvia and Teklu, Adelheid F (2018) Cosmological simulations of black hole growth II: how (in)significant are merger events for fuelling nuclear activity? Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 481 (1), 341-360. (doi:10.1093/mnras/sty2288).
Baldi, R.D., Williams, D.R.A., McHardy, I.M., Beswick, R.J., Argo, M.K., Dullo, B.T., Knapen, J.H., Brinks, E., Muxlow, T.W.B., Aalto, S., Alberdi, A., Bendo, G.J., Corbel, S., Evans, R., Fenech, D.M., Green, D.A., Klöckner, H.-R., Körding, E., Kharb, P., Maccarone, T.J., Martí-Vidal, I., Mundell, C.G., Panessa, F., Peck, A.B., Pérez-Torres, M.A., Saikia, D.J., Saikia, P., Shankar, F., Spencer, R.E., Stevens, I.R., Uttley, P. and Westcott, J. (2018) LeMMINGs. I. The eMERLIN legacy survey of nearby galaxies. 1.5-GHz parsec-scale radio structures and cores. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 476 (3), 3478-3522. (doi:10.1093/mnras/sty342).
Bernardi, M., Sheth, R.K., Dominguez-Sanchez, H., Fischer, J.-L., Chae, K.-H., Huertas-Company, M. and Shankar, F. (2018) M*/L gradients driven by IMF variation: large impact on dynamical stellar mass estimates. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 477 (2), 2560–2571. (doi:10.1093/mnras/sty781).
Sani, Eleonora, Ricci, Federica, Le Franca, Fabio, Bianchi, Stefano, Bongiorno, Angela, Brusa, Marcella, Marconi, Alessandro, Onori, Francesca, Shankar, F and Vignali, Cristian (2018) NGC 1275: an outlier of the black hole-host scaling relations. Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences. (doi:10.3389/fspas.2018.00002).
Shankar, F (2018) Revisiting the Bulge-Halo Conspiracy II: Towards explaining its puzzling dependence on redshift. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2878-2890. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stx3086).
Bernardi, M., Sheth, R.K., Fischer, J.-L., Meert, A., Chae, K.-H., Dominguez-Sanchez, H., Huertas-Company, M., Shankar, F. and Vikram, V. (2018) Stellar mass functions and implications for a variable IMF. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 475 (1), 757-771. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stx3171).
Yang, Lilan, Dai, Xinyu, Lu, Youjun, Zhu1, Zong Hong and Shankar, Francesco (2018) Swift monitoring observations of Mrk 231: detection of ultraviolet variability. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 480 (4), 5504-5510. (doi:10.1093/MNRAS/STY2253).
Lapi, A., Pantoni, L., Zanisi, L., Shi, J., Mancuso, C., Massardi, M., Shankar, F., Bressen, A. and Danese, L. (2018) The dramatic size and kinematic evolution of massive early-type galaxies. The Astrophysical Journal, 857 (1), [22].

2017

Adhikari, R., Bari, P. Di and Shankar, F. , White Paper on keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter collaboration (2017) A White Paper on keV sterile neutrino Dark Matter. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2017 (1), [025]. (doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2017/01/025).
Fiore, F., Feruglio, C., Shankar, F., Bischetti, M., Bongiorno, A., Brusa, M., Carniani, S., Cicone, C., Duras, F., Lamastra, A., Mainieri, V., Marconi, A., Menci, N., Maiolino, R., Piconcelli, E., Vietri, G. and Zappacosta, L. (2017) AGN wind scaling relations and the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 601, 1-21, [A143]. (doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201629478).
Bernardi, M., Fischer, J.-L., Sheth, R.K., Meert, A., Huertas-Company, M., Shankar, F. and Vikram, V. (2017) Comparing PyMorph and SDSS photometry. II.: The differences are more than semantics and are not dominated by intracluster light. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 468 (3), 2569-2581.
Ricci, Federica, Marchesi, Stefano, Shankar, Francesco, La Franca, Fabio and Civano, Francesca (2017) Constraining the UV emissivity of AGN throughout cosmic time via X-ray surveys. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 465 (2), 1915-1925. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2909).
Hoenig, S.F., Watson, D., Kishimoto, M., Gandhi, P., Goad, M., Horne, K., Shankar, F., Banerji, M., Boulderstone, B., Jarvis, M., Smith, M. and Sullivan, M. (2017) Cosmology with AGN dust time lags–simulating the new VEILS survey. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 464 (2), 1693-1703. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2484).
Ricci, F., La Franca, F., Marconi, A., Onori, F., Shankar, F., Schneider, R., Sani, E., Bianchi, S., Bongiorno, A., Brusa, M., Fiore, F., Maiolino, R. and Vignali, C. (2017) Detection of faint broad emission lines in type 2 AGNs – III. On the MBH-σ⋆ relation of type 2 AGNs. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 471 (1), L41-L46. (doi:10.1093/mnrasl/slx103).
Calderone, G., Nicastro, L., Ghisellini, G., Dotti, M., Sbarrato, T., Shankar, F. and Colpi, M. (2017) QSFit: Automatic analysis of optical AGN spectra. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 472 (4), 4051-4080. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stx2239).
Shankar, Francesco (2017) Revisiting the bulge-halo conspiracy I: dependence on galaxy properties and halo mass. The Astrophysical Journal. (doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa66ce).
Barausse, Enrico, Shankar, F and Bernardi, Mariangela (2017) Selection bias in dynamically measured supermassive black hole samples: Scaling relations and correlations between residuals in semi-analytic galaxy formation models: Scaling relations and correlations between residuals in semi-analytic galaxy formation models. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 468 (4), 4782-4791. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stx799).
Shankar, Francesco, Bernardi, Mariangela and Sheth, Ravi K. (2017) Selection bias in dynamically-measured super-massive black hole samples: dynamical masses and dependence on Sérsic index. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 466, 4029-4039. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stw3368).
Bernardi, M., Meert, A., Sheth, R. K., Fischer, J.-L., Huertas-Company, M., Maraston, C., Shankar, F. and Vikram, V. (2017) The high mass end of the stellar mass function: dependence on stellar population models and agreement between fits to the light profile. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 467 (2), 2217-2233. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stx176).

2016

Brook, Chris B. and Shankar, Francesco (2016) A matter of measurement: rotation velocities and the velocity function of dwarf galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 455 (4), 3841-3847. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stv2550).
Papastergis, E. and Shankar, F. (2016) An assessment of the "too big to fail" problem for field dwarf galaxies in view of baryonic feedback effects. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 591 (A58), 1-13. (doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201527854).
Gatti, M., Shankar, F., Boillot, V., Menci, N., Lamastra, A., Hirschmann, M. and Fiore, F. (2016) Constraining AGN triggering mechanisms through the clustering analysis of active black holes. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 456 (1), 1073-1092. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stv2754).
Shankar, Francesco (2016) Host galaxies of luminous z? 0.6 quasars: Major mergers are not prevalent at the highest AGN luminosities. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1-20. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stw3037).
Fontanot, Fabio, Monaco, Pierluigi and Shankar, Francesco (2016) Interpreting the possible break in the black hole-bulge mass relation. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 453 (4), 4112-4120. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stv1930).
Huertas-Company, M., Bernardi, M., Perez-Gonzalez, P.G., Ashby, M.L.N., Barro, G., Conselice, C., Daddi, E., Dekel, A., Dimauro, P., Faber, S.M., Grogin, N.A., Kartaltepe, J.S., Kocevski, D.D., Koekemoer, A.M., Koo, D.C., Mei, S. and Shankar, F. (2016) Mass assembly and morphological transformations since z~3 from CANDELS. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 462 (4), 4495-4516. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stw1866).
Sesana, Alberto, Shankar, Francesco, Bernardi, Mariangela and Sheth, Ravi K. (2016) Selection bias in dynamically measured supermassive black hole samples: consequences for pulsar timing arrays. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 463 (1), L6-L11. (doi:10.1093/mnrasl/slw139).
Shankar, Francesco, Bernardi, Mariangela, Sheth, Ravi K., Ferrarese, Laura, Graham, Alister W., Savorgnan, Giulia, Allevato, Viola, Marconi, Alessandro, Lasker, Ronald and Lapi, Andrea (2016) Selection bias in dynamically-measured super-massive black hole samples: its consequences and the quest for the most fundamental relation. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 460 (3), 3119-3142. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stw678).
Buchan, Stewart and Shankar, Francesco (2016) Setting firmer constraints on the evolution of the most massive, central galaxies from their local abundances and ages. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 462 (2), 2001-2010. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stw1771).
Marchesi, S., Civano, F., Salvato, M., Shankar, F., Comastri, A., Elvis, M., Lanzuisi, G., Trakhtenbrot, B., Vignali, C., Zamorani, G., Allevato, V., Brusa, M., Fiore, F., Gilli, R., Griffiths, R., Hasinger, G., Miyaji, T., Schawinski, K., Treister, E. and Urry, C.M. (2016) The Chandra COSMOS-Legacy Survey: The z>3 sample. The Astrophysical Journal, 827 (150), 1-16. (doi:10.3847/0004-637X/827/2/150).
Allevato, V., Civano, F., Finoguenov, A., Marchesi, S., Shankar, F., Zamorani, G., Hasinger, G., Salvato, M., Miyaji, T., Gilli, R., Cappelluti, N., Brusa, M., Suh, H., Lanzuisi, G., Trakhtenbrot, B., Griffiths, R., Vignali, C., Schawinski, K. and Karim, A. (2016) The Chandra Cosmos legacy survey: clustering of x-ray selected AGN at 2.9. The Astrophysical Journal, 832 (1), 1-10. (doi:10.3847/0004-637X/832/1/70).
Shankar, Francesco, Calderone, Giorgio, Knigge, Christian, Matthews, James, Buckland, Rachel, Hryniewicz, Krzysztof, Sivakoff, Gregory, Dai, Xinyu, Richardson, Kayleigh, Riley, Jack, Gray, James, La Franca, Fabio, Altamirano, Diego, Croston, Judith, Gandhi, Poshak, Hoenig, Sebastian, Mchardy, Ian and Middleton, Matthew (2016) The optical-UV emissivity of quasars: dependence on black hole mass and radio loudness. The Astrophysical Journal, 818 (1), 1-6. (doi:10.3847/2041-8205/818/1/L1).

2015

Huertas-Company, Marc, Gravet, R, Cabrera-Vives, G., Pérez-González, Pablo G., Kartaltepe, J.S., Barro, G., Bernardi, M., Mei, S., Shankar, F, Dimauro, P., Bell, E. F., Kocevski, D., Koo, D. C., Faber, S. M. and Mcintosh, D. H. (2015) A catalog of visual-like morphologies in the 5 CANDELS fields using deep-learning. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 221 (1), [8]. (doi:10.1088/0067-0049/221/1/8).
Shankar, Francesco, Buchan, Stewart, Rettura, Alessandro, Bouillot, Vincent R., Moreno, Jorge, Licitra, Rossella, Bernardi, Mariangela, Hertas-Company, Marc, Mei, Simona, Ascaso, Begona, Sheth, Ravi, Delaye, Lauriane and Raichoor, Anand (2015) Avoiding progenitor bias: the structural and mass evolution of brightest group and cluster galaxies in hierarchical models since Z~1. The Astrophysical Journal, 802 (2), 1-9. (doi:10.1088/0004-637X/802/2/73).
Aversa, R., Lapi, A., de Zotti, G., Shankar, F. and Danese, L. (2015) Black hole and galaxy coevolution from continuity equation and abundance matching. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 810 (74), 1-40. (doi:10.1088/0004-637X/810/1/74).
Papastergis, E., Giovanelli, R., Haynes, M.P. and Shankar, F. (2015) Is there a "too big to fail" problem in the field? Astronomy & Astrophysics, 574, [A113]. (doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201424909).
Bernardi, M., Meert, Alan and Shankar, F (2015) The massive end of the luminosity and stellar mass functions and clustering from CMASS to SDSS:: evidence for and against passive evolution. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (In Press)
Huertas-Company, M., Perez-Gonzalez, P.G., Mei, S. and Shankar, F (2015) The morphologies of massive galaxies from z 3 - witnessing the 2 channels of bulge growth. The Astrophysical Journal.

2014

Allevato, V., Finoguenov, A., Civano, F., Cappelluti, N., Shankar, F., Miyaji, T., Hasinger, G., Gilli, R., Zamorani, G., Lanzuisi, G., Salvato, M., Elvis, M., Comastri, A. and Silverman, J. (2014) Clustering of moderate luminosity X-ray-selected Type 1 and Type 2 AGNS at Z ~ 3. The Astrophysical Journal, 796 (1), 4. (doi:10.1088/0004-637X/796/1/4).
Shankar, Francesco, Mei, Simona, Huertas-Company, Marc, Moreno, Jorge, Fontanot, Fabio, Monaco, Pierluigi, Bernardi, Mariangela, Cattaneo, Andrea, Sheth, Ravi, Licitra, Rossella, Delaye, Lauriane and Raichoor, Anand (2014) Environmental dependence of bulge-dominated galaxy sizes in hierarchical models of galaxy formation. Comparison with the local Universe. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 439 (4), 3189-3212. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stt2470).
Stringer, M. J., Shankar, F., Novak, G. S., Huertas-company, M., Combes, F. and Moster, B. P. (2014) Galaxy size trends as a consequence of cosmology. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 441 (2), 1570-1583. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stu645).
Delaye, L., Huertas-Company, M., Mei, S., Lidman, C., Licitra, R., Newman, A., Raichoor, A., Shankar, F., Barrientos, F., Bernardi, M., Cerulo, P., Couch, W., Demarco, R., Munoz, R., Sanchez-Janssen, R. and Tanaka, M. (2014) Larger sizes of massive quiescent early-type galaxies in clusters than in the field at 0.8 < z < 1.5. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 441 (1), 203-223. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stu496).
Shankar, Francesco, Guo, Hon, Bouillot, Vincent, Rettura, Alessandro, Meert, Alan, Buchan, Stewart, Kravtsov, Andrey, Bernardi, Mariangela, Sheth, Ravi, Vikrum, Vinu, Marchesini, Danilo, Behroozie, Peter, Zheng, Zheng, Maraston, Claudia, Ascasp, Begona, Lemaux, Brian C., Capozzi, Diego, Huertas-Company, Marc, Gal, Roy R., Lubin, Lori M., Conselice, Christopher J., Carollo, Marcella and Cattaneo, Andrea (2014) On the intermediate-redshift central stellar mass-halo mass relation, and implications for the evolution of the most massive galaxies since Z~1. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 797 (L27), 1-6. (doi:10.1088/2041-8205/797/2/L27).
Bernardi, M., Meert, A., Vikram, V., Huertas-Company, M., Mei, S., Shankar, F. and Sheth, R. K. (2014) Systematic effects on the size–luminosity relations of early- and late-type galaxies: dependence on model fitting and morphology. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 443 (1), 874-897. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stu1106).
Schulze, A., Bongiorno, A., Gavignaud, I and Shankar, F (2014) The cosmic growth of the active black hole population at 1 < z < 2 in zCOSMOS, VVDS and SDSS. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (In Press)
Morabito, L. K., Dai, Xinyu, Leighly, Karen M, Sivakoff, Gregory and Shankar, F (2014) Unveiling the intrinsic x-ray properties of broad absorption line quasars with a relatively unbiased sample. The Astrophysical Journal. (In Press)

2013

Shankar, Francesco, Marulli, Federico, Bernardi, Mariangela, Mei, Simona, Meert, Alan and Vikram, Vinu (2013) Size evolution of spheroids in a hierarchical Universe. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 428 (1), 109-128. (doi:10.1093/mnras/sts001).
Lasker, Ronald, Ferrarese, Laura, Van De Ven, Glenn and Shankar, F (2013) Supermassive black holes and their host galaxies – ii. The correlation with near-infrared luminosity revisited. The Astrophysical Journal. (In Press)

2010

Shankar, Francesco, Crocce, Martin, Miralda-Escude', Jordi, Fosalba, Pablo and Weinberg, David H. (2010) On the radiative efficiencies, Eddington ratios, and duty cycles of luminous high-redshift quasars. The Astrophysical Journal, 718 (1), 231-250. (doi:10.1088/0004-637X/718/1/231).

2009

Shankar, Francesco, Weinberg, David H. and Miralda-Escude, Jordi (2009) Self-consistent models of the AGN and black hole populations: duty cycles, accretion rates, and the mean radiative efficiency. Astrophysical Journal, 690, 20-41. (doi:10.1088/0004-637X/690/1/20).
Shankar, Francesco, Bernardi, Mariangela and Haiman, Zoltan (2009) The evolution of the M_BH-sigma relation inferred from the age distribution of local early-type galaxies and active galactic nuclei evolution. Astrophysical Journal, 694 (2), 867-878. (doi:10.1088/0004-637X/694/2/867).

Professor Francesco Shankar

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